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Cream Tomato Soup

A tomato soup thickened with milk, cream, and butter, seasoned with salt, pepper, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Run the tomatoes through a sieve.

  2. Boil the strained tomatoes in a granite dish.

  3. When the tomatoes boil, add the baking soda.

  4. Season with salt, pepper, and a small piece of butter.

Make the milk base

  1. Rub the butter and flour together, then add to the milk.

  2. Once the milk comes to a boil, combine the tomatoes and milk.

Serve

  1. Serve hot.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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
Provide the main body and flavor of the soup.
Milk
Makes the soup creamy and mellows the tomato acidity.
Flour
Thickens the soup slightly as it cooks with the milk.
Baking soda
Neutralizes some tomato acidity, reducing sharpness and altering color.

The step that matters

Adding the baking soda to the boiling tomatoes. Baking soda reacts with tomato acid and can cause foaming and a sudden rise in the pot. Add it in small amounts while the tomatoes are boiling, and stir as it works, so the soup does not overflow or taste soapy.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cream, flour, pepper, butter. 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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