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Cream Tomato Soup

A tomato soup made with canned tomatoes, milk, butter, salt, pepper, baking soda, and sugar.

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

Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Cream Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Strain the tomatoes and bring them to a boil.

  2. Add salt, pepper, baking soda, and sugar.

  3. Stir in the milk and add the butter.

  4. Let the mixture come to a boil again.

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

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

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 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 flavour of the soup.
Baking soda
Neutralises some tomato acidity, which keeps the milk from curdling as easily.
Milk
Forms the creamy base and gives the soup its smooth, rich texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a silky mouthfeel.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the tomatoes with mild sweetness.

The step that matters

Adding the milk to the hot tomatoes. Tomatoes are acidic and can curdle milk when they meet it. Baking soda is added first to lower the acidity, and the milk should be stirred in carefully so the soup stays smooth rather than separating.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, sugar, milk, butter, egg. 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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