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Mock Bisque Soup

A tomato-based soup thickened with milk, served with toasted buttered bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Mock Bisque Soup

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Mock Bisque Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Stew the tomatoes until they dissolve.

  2. Add a small pinch of baking soda and strain through a cloth or sieve once foaming stops.

  3. Stir in the milk, salt, and butter.

Prepare the toast and serve

  1. Toast the buttered bread until brown.

  2. Cut the toasted bread into slices.

  3. Place a few pieces of toasted bread into each dish 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.

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.

  1. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Tomato + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Break down into a pulp that forms the body and flavor base of the soup.
Baking soda
Neutralizes tomato acidity and causes foaming, which is removed when straining.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness, mellowing the tomato's sharpness.
Buttered bread
Browns in the oven or pan, adding toasty aroma and crisp texture to the soup.

The step that matters

Adding the baking soda. Baking soda reacts with tomato acid and foams vigorously. Add only a small pinch, or the soup may taste soapy and bitter, and wait for foaming to stop before straining.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, bread):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Tomatothe original
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Leekfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, bread. 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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