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Cream of Tomato Soup

A tomato soup thickened with butter, flour, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Cream of Tomato Soup

Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and 17,451 recipes mention both. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Cream of Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato base

  1. Cook tomatoes with 1¼ cups of water, seasonings, and sugar slowly for twenty minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture.

  3. Add salt and baking soda.

Make the cream sauce

  1. Melt butter in a pot. Add flour and stir constantly.

  2. Add Carnation Milk diluted with one cup of water. Cook until thickened, stirring occasionally.

Combine and serve

  1. Combine the strained tomatoes with the milk mixture.

  2. 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.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together20,633 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes (in the method)
Provide the main body and tomato flavour of the soup.
Butter
Carries flavour and enriches the sauce base with fat.
Flour
Thickens the sauce when cooked with butter and liquid.
Carnation milk
Adds creaminess and richness to the soup.
Baking soda
Neutralises some tomato acidity, softening the flavour.

The step that matters

Add the milk mixture to the tomatoes gently and serve right away. Acidic tomatoes can curdle hot milk-based sauces when combined too quickly or at too high a heat. Combining the strained tomatoes with the sauce at a controlled temperature keeps it smooth, and serving immediately preserves its texture.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

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

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Sweet potatobetter flavor fit
  3. Carrotbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, tomato, clove, 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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