Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Mock Bisque Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the tomatoes
Combine tomatoes, bay leaf, parsley, and mace in a saucepan. Cover and cook on low heat for 15 minutes.
Press the cooked tomatoes through a fine sieve to remove the seeds and place the strained liquid in a soup tureen.
Make the milk base
Heat the milk in a double boiler. In a separate bowl, rub together the butter and flour. Add the butter‑flour mixture to the milk and stir until thickened.
Combine and serve
Add the sugar and baking soda to the tomatoes, then quickly pour in the boiling milk. Stir and serve immediately.
Do not reheat the soup after mixing the milk and tomatoes, or it will separate. If not ready to serve, keep the tomatoes and milk hot separately until serving.
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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,398 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together16,675 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Milk
- Forms the creamy body of the soup and makes it smooth and rich.
- Tomatoes
- Provide the main flavour and acidity that the milk is combined with.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness to the flour mixture that thickens the milk.
- Flour
- Thickens the milk into a smooth, body-giving base when cooked with butter.
- Baking soda
- Neutralises tomato acidity so the soup is less likely to curdle, while adding a little sweetness balance.
The step that matters
Combining the hot milk and tomatoes. Tomato acid can curdle milk, and reheating after mixing makes the proteins separate. Pour the boiling milk into the tomatoes quickly, serve at once, and keep the two components hot separately if waiting.
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, tomato, butter, parsley, sugar, flour):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Cardamomfits better
- Nutmegfits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, tomato, butter, parsley, sugar, flour. 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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