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Plain Tomato Soup

A tomato soup with ham, celery, onion, carrot, and bay leaf, simmered and blended with butter and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 10,173 recipes mention both. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Plain Tomato Soup

2 cups soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the ham, carrot, celery, and onion into very small pieces.

  2. In a small skillet, cook the onion and ham over medium heat, stirring occasionally until slightly browned.

  3. Transfer the onion and ham to a saucepan, add the carrot, celery, bay leaf, and boiling water.

  4. Bring to a boil and simmer for 20 minutes.

  5. Add the tomatoes and simmer for an additional 10 minutes.

Strain and thicken

  1. Press the mixture through a sieve and measure the soup; add water if necessary to make 2 cups.

  2. Return the soup to the heat, bring to a boil, and stir in the blended butter and flour.

  3. Continue stirring until boiling, then add the salt and pepper.

Finish and serve

  1. If the tomatoes are sour, stir in the bicarbonate of soda or sugar just 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.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together3,377 recipes

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

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14,555 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,606 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 boils with the butter, giving it body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and is blended with flour to thicken the soup.
Ham
Adds savory, browned flavour to the base.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and flavour to the base when softened and browned.

The step that matters

Stirring in the butter and flour. Once the blended butter and flour go into boiling liquid, they must be stirred constantly until boiling. Stopping early can leave lumps and a floury taste, and the starch needs to reach a boil to thicken properly.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, ham, flour, butter, celery, carrot, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, ham, flour, butter, celery, carrot, pepper. 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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