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Tomato Bisque

A creamy tomato soup made with canned tomatoes, onions, flour, sugar, baking soda, spices, butter, milk, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Tomato Bisque

Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Tomato Bisque

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato base

  1. Boil the canned tomatoes with the onion and strain the mixture.

  2. Heat the milk in a separate pot.

Make the paste and finish

  1. Mix the flour, sugar, baking soda, red pepper, black pepper, salt, and butter in a bowl until creamy.

  2. Pour enough of the strained tomatoes into the creamy mixture to form a paste.

  3. Stir the paste into the strained tomatoes.

  4. Add the heated milk and stir constantly until well combined.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Canned tomatoes
Provide the main tomato flavor and the body of the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup by forming a paste that binds into the liquid.
Butter
Adds fat for a smoother, richer mouthfeel.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the acidity of the tomatoes.
Baking soda
Neutralizes some of the tomatoes' acidity, mellowing the flavor.

The step that matters

Adding the heated milk. Stir constantly while adding the milk. Milk proteins can curdle or clump when they meet acidic tomatoes, and constant stirring keeps the bisque smooth while the mixture combines evenly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, flour, sugar, pepper, butter, milk):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, flour, sugar, pepper, butter, milk. 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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