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Tomato Soup

A tomato soup made with onions, butter, cornstarch, spices, and water, sweetened with brown sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Tomato Soup

Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 7,874 recipes mention both. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Fry the sliced onions in butter until rich brown.

  2. Add cornstarch, salt, cayenne pepper, and black pepper to taste.

  3. Stir in the tomatoes and boil until very soft.

  4. Strain the mixture through a coarse sieve.

  5. Season with cloves and allspice, then add brown sugar.

  6. Pour in the water and bring to a boil again.

  7. Can the soup while hot for winter storage.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together20,633 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

Onions
Frying until rich brown adds deep, savory, caramelized flavor to the soup.
Cornstarch
Thickens the soup as it heats, giving it a smooth, body-rich texture.
Ripe tomatoes
Form the main body of the soup, breaking down into a pulp when boiled until very soft.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the tomatoes.

The step that matters

Add cornstarch to the onion mixture. Cornstarch thickens only when heated in liquid and can clump if added to hot liquid without being stirred in well first. Stirring it smoothly into the mixture helps it thicken evenly instead of forming lumps.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, tomato, sugar, clove, allspice. 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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