Why it works: Tomato and corn match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and 2,099 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Tomato Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Make the soup base
Wash and boil the tomatoes until soft.
Pass the cooked tomatoes through a fine sieve.
Thicken and finish
In a bowl, beat the butter and mix in the corn starch.
Stir the butter mixture into the tomato stock.
Add coarse sea salt, water, and chopped parsley.
Boil for an additional 20 minutes.
Before serving, stir in the cider.
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.
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Tomato + corntop 6% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together2,099 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together5,398 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Corn + parsleytop 12% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together943 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Butter + corntop 14% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together7,345 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
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Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together28,563 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
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, flavor, and liquid base of the soup.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat that carries flavor and smooths the texture.
- Corn starch
- Thickens the soup as it heats, giving it a fuller body.
- Cider
- Adds acidity and a bright, fruity note stirred in at the end.
The step that matters
Stirring the butter and corn starch into the tomato stock. Cornstarch clumps if added dry or unevenly to hot liquid. Blending it with butter first and stirring it through the stock helps it disperse so the soup thickens smoothly rather than lumping.
Flavor stand-ins for the parsley
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, butter, corn, cider):
- Thymebetter flavor fit
- Corianderbetter flavor fit
- Basilbetter flavor fit
- Parsleythe original
Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, butter, corn, cider. 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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