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Mock Bisque Soup

A tomato-based soup thickened with butter, flour, and baking soda, finished with milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Mock Bisque Soup

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 ↓

Mock Bisque Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato base

  1. Heat the tomatoes.

  2. Strain the tomatoes.

  3. Add the baking soda to the boiling mixture.

Make the roux

  1. Mix the butter, flour, salt, and pepper in a separate pan.

Combine and serve

  1. Pour the two mixtures together into a hot bowl.

  2. Stir in the milk 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 + 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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

Tomatoes
Form the soup's main body and tangy, acidic flavor.
Baking soda
Neutralizes the tomatoes' acidity, which helps keep the milk from curdling.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, rounded flavor.
Flour
Thickens the soup by binding with butter and liquid.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness, softening the tomato acidity.

The step that matters

Adding the baking soda to the boiling tomatoes. Baking soda reacts with the tomatoes' acid and releases carbon dioxide, so the mixture foams up quickly. Add it slowly in a large enough pot. It also raises the pH, which helps keep the milk from curdling later.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, pepper, 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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