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Tomato Bisque

A creamy tomato bisque made with butter, flour, milk, tomatoes, onion, water, salt, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Tomato Bisque

Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Tomato Bisque

Ingredients

Directions

Make the white sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the flour and rub together until smooth.

  3. Gradually add the milk and cook until thickened.

Finish the bisque

  1. In another pot, cook the tomatoes, water, onion, salt, and sugar for about 5 minutes.

  2. Strain the tomato mixture into the thickened milk before serving.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Butter and flour 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

Butter
Carries fat for flavor and richness and gives the flour a base to cook in.
Flour
Starch thickens the milk into a smooth, body-rich sauce as it cooks.
Milk
Forms the creamy base that the tomato flavor is combined with.
Tomatoes
Provide the main flavor and acidity of the bisque.
Onion
Adds a savory aroma that supports the tomato flavor.

The step that matters

Straining the tomato mixture into the milk. Tomatoes are acidic, and acid combined with hot milk can curdle it. Adding the tomato mixture to the thickened sauce, rather than the reverse, helps keep it smooth.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, onion, sugar. 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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