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Tomato Bouillon

A tomato-based bouillon made with stock, herbs, and egg white, strained and served with breadsticks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Tomato Bouillon

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Combine all ingredients except the egg white in a saucepan.

  2. Cover and bring to a boil, then simmer for 20 minutes.

  3. Beat the egg white until slightly frothy.

  4. Press the tomato mixture through a sieve and return it to the saucepan.

  5. Stir in the egg white, bring to a boil, and cook for 10 minutes.

Strain and season

  1. Strain through a double thickness of cheesecloth without pressure.

  2. Add salt to taste, and if the tomatoes are very sour, add a pinch of sugar.

  3. Serve with breadsticks.

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  3. Clove + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  4. Parsley + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

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

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 flavor of the broth.
Egg white
Clarifies the broth as it cooks, trapping fine solids that are then strained out.
Stock
Supplies the liquid base and savory depth of the broth.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg white and bring to a boil. The egg white must be stirred in evenly before boiling so it can coagulate and collect particles. Heating it unevenly or stirring it in too late can leave the broth cloudy.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, parsley, celery, egg):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, parsley, celery, egg. 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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