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Soup

Tomato Soup

A tomato soup made with beef or stock, tomatoes, onion, salt, pepper, and thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Tomato Soup

Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and 17,092 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. In a kettle, combine beef or stock with cold water.

  2. Bring to a boil and simmer for 3 hours if using meat, or 30 minutes if using prepared stock.

Finish the soup

  1. Remove the meat and add tomatoes and onion to the soup.

  2. Season with salt and pepper.

  3. Dissolve flour in a small amount of water, stir into the soup, and boil for 30 minutes.

  4. Strain before serving.

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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together17,092 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together5,448 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together18,971 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 flavor, acidity and body of the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup as it boils, giving it more body.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aromatic depth to the broth.

The step that matters

Stirring the dissolved flour into the soup. Flour added as a lump or undissolved clumps forms lumps that stay in the soup. Dissolving it in water first lets starch spread evenly, and boiling it fully swells the starch so the soup thickens smoothly.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, tomato, pepper, flour. 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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