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Tomato Soup

A chicken and bacon tomato soup simmered with onions, sugar, salt, pepper, and thickened with a butter‑flour mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Tomato Soup

Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and 17,923 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cut the chicken and bacon into pieces and put them in a large pot with 1½ gallons of water.

  2. Boil until the chicken and bacon are well cooked.

  3. Add 1 gallon of tomatoes, sugar, onions, salt, and pepper, and continue boiling until everything is tender.

  4. In a separate bowl, mix the flour with butter, thin it with some soup, and stir the mixture back into the pot.

  5. Allow the soup to boil once more, then serve hot.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together20,633 recipes

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

  3. Chicken + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together6,031 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together68,474 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, acidity and flavour of the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup as it mixes with butter and liquid.
Butter
Carries the flour so it blends smoothly into the soup without lumps.
Chicken
Flavours the broth and adds savoury richness.
Bacon
Adds smoky, savoury fat that flavours the broth.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour and butter mixture back into the pot. Flour added directly to hot liquid clumps. Mixing it first with butter and some soup thins it so it disperses evenly and thickens smoothly.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, tomato, sugar, pepper, flour, butter):

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Potatobetter flavor fit
  3. Okrabetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, tomato, sugar, pepper, flour, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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