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Soup

Mock Bisque Soup

A tomato soup thickened with cornstarch, enriched with butter and milk, and seasoned with salt, cayenne pepper, soda, parsley, and paprika.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Hamilton, Ohio. First Methodist Episcopal church. [from old catalog] · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Illustration of Mock Bisque SoupIllustration

Why it works: Butter and bread match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 27,145 recipes mention both. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: milk, wheat, fish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Also mentioned in the method: fish, snapper

Directions

Make the tomato mixture

  1. Stew tomatoes until soft enough to strain easily, and add soda to the tomatoes when ready to blend the two mixtures together.

Make the white sauce

  1. Heat the milk in a double boiler, and blend in the cornstarch, making a white sauce.

  2. Beat in the butter.

Combine and serve

  1. Add the soda to the tomatoes, and when effervescence ceases add the tomato mixture to the white sauce.

  2. Strain and serve.

By Hamilton, Ohio. First Methodist Episcopal church. [from old catalog]. 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. See the original page.

The picture is an illustration, not a photo of this recipe · 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. Butter + breadtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,145 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + milktop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together81,222 recipes

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

  3. Milk + breadtop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together11,363 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Tomato + breadtop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,013 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Tomato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,396 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Supply the main body and acidity of the soup once stewed and strained.
Cornstarch
Thickens the hot milk into a smooth white sauce as its starch swells with heat.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid base of the white sauce.
Butter
Adds fat for a smoother, richer mouthfeel and flavor.

The step that matters

Adding the tomato mixture to the white sauce. Tomatoes are acidic, and acid can curdle hot milk. Letting the soda reaction finish first reduces the acidity, and the mixture should be added gradually and kept from boiling hard to keep it smooth.

Flavor stand-ins for the parsley

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

  1. Cinnamonbetter flavor fit
  2. Thymeabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Celeryabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, butter, milk, bread. 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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