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Tomato Bisque Soup

A creamy tomato soup made with tomatoes, onions, spices, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Tomato Bisque Soup

Why it works: Parsley and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Tomato Bisque Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato base

  1. Mix the tomatoes, bay leaf, onions, sugar, cloves, baking soda, peppercorns, and salt in a pot.

  2. Bring to a boil, then let simmer for 20 minutes.

  3. Rub the mixture through a sieve.

Thicken and serve

  1. Melt the butter in a pan, add the flour, and gradually pour in the hot mixture while stirring constantly.

  2. Add this to the scalded milk and serve immediately.

  3. Garnish with whipped cream for an improved flavor.

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. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  3. Clove + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  4. Clove + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 flavor of the soup.
Baking soda
Neutralises some of the tomato acidity, making the soup milder and smoother.
Flour
Thickens the butter and tomato mixture into a smooth, body-rich base.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mellows the tomato flavor for a bisque texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the flour form a smooth roux.

The step that matters

Adding the hot mixture to the roux. Pouring the hot tomato mixture in gradually while stirring constantly keeps the flour smooth. Adding it all at once can cause lumps, leaving the soup grainy instead of velvety.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, sugar, clove, parsley, flour, celery, butter):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Okrafits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, sugar, clove, parsley, flour, celery, butter. 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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