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Tomato Cream Soup

A soup made from stewed tomatoes, onion, bay leaf, cloves, parsley, water or stock, butter, flour, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Tomato Cream Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup base

  1. Slice and stew the tomatoes, onion, bay leaf, cloves, and parsley in 4 cups of water or stock until tender.

  2. Rub everything through a sieve.

Thicken and finish

  1. Blend 2 tablespoons of flour with 2 tablespoons of butter and add to the mixture.

  2. Stir until boiling, then season with salt, pepper, and baking soda.

  3. Just before serving, stir in 1 pint of scalded milk.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Clove + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the main body, flavour and acidity of the soup.
Butter and flour
Form a roux that thickens the soup into a smooth, creamy texture.
Milk
Adds richness and creaminess, softening the tomato's sharpness.
Baking soda
Neutralises some of the tomato's acidity, mellowing the flavour.

The step that matters

Adding the milk. Scalded milk should be stirred in just before serving and not boiled hard afterward, because prolonged heat or boiling can cause dairy to curdle or separate in an acidic tomato base.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, clove, parsley, butter, flour, pepper, milk):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, clove, parsley, butter, flour, pepper, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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