Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and 81,283 recipes mention both. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Cream of Tomato Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the tomatoes
Cook the tomatoes until quite soft.
Make the milk base
Heat the milk in a double boiler.
In a separate pan, cook the butter and flour together.
Add a little hot milk to the butter and flour mixture.
Stir the mixture well into the remaining milk.
Combine and serve
Once the thickened milk has boiled for ten minutes, season the tomatoes.
Add the baking soda.
Strain the tomatoes into the milk.
Serve immediately.
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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together17,923 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Tomato + milktop 15% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together2,226 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Butter and flour share little aroma chemistry, yet 124,287 recipes mention both: they likely 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
- Tomatoes
- Provide the main body and tangy flavour of the soup.
- Milk
- Forms the creamy liquid base of the soup.
- Butter and flour
- Cook together to make a roux that thickens the milk.
- Baking soda
- Neutralises some tomato acidity, softening the flavour and changing its colour.
The step that matters
Adding the baking soda to the hot tomatoes. Baking soda reacts with tomato acid and can cause the soup to foam or curdle the milk when combined too quickly. Adding it to the tomatoes before straining into the milk helps control this reaction.
“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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