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Tomato Soup for Eight Persons

A creamy tomato soup made with tomatoes, onion, bay leaf, mace, milk, butter, flour, salt, pepper, and baking soda.

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

Tomato Soup for Eight Persons

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the tomatoes

  1. Simmer the tomatoes, onion, bay leaf, and mace for 10 minutes.

Make the soup

  1. In a double boiler, heat the milk.

  2. Once hot, add the butter and flour, stirring until smooth and thick.

  3. Add the salt and pepper.

  4. Strain the tomato mixture, then stir in the baking soda and add the milk mixture.

  5. Serve immediately.

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.

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.

  1. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 flavor and the acidic, tangy base of the soup.
Milk
Adds creamy body and mild sweetness to the soup.
Butter
Adds fat for richer flavor and a smoother mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the soup as its starch swells and sets when heated with the butter and milk.
Baking soda
Neutralizes some of the tomato acidity, making the soup less tart.

The step that matters

Combining the tomato mixture with the milk. Tomatoes are acidic, and acid can curdle milk proteins when the two are combined. Adding baking soda to the strained tomatoes first reduces that acidity, which helps keep the soup smooth.

Flavor stand-ins for the mace

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

  1. Garlicbetter flavor fit
  2. Thymebetter flavor fit
  3. Parsleybetter flavor fit
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, onion, milk, butter, flour, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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