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Tomato Bisque

A creamy tomato soup made with tomatoes, milk, butter, cornstarch, and a pinch of baking soda, topped with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Tomato Bisque

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 ↓

Tomato Bisque

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Boil the tomatoes with 1 cup of water and strain.

  2. Dissolve a small pinch of baking soda in boiling water and stir into the tomatoes.

Make the milk base

  1. Heat 1 pint of new milk in a double boiler.

  2. Add a piece of butter to the milk.

  3. Season with salt and pepper.

  4. Dissolve 2 tablespoons of cornstarch in a little cold milk and stir into the boiling milk.

Combine and serve

  1. Combine the boiling milk with the tomatoes and serve immediately.

  2. Top each serving with a spoonful of whipped cream.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 bisque.
New milk
Forms the creamy base that gives the bisque its smooth, rich body.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk as it heats, giving the bisque a smooth, velvety texture.
Baking soda
Neutralises some of the tomato acidity, softening the sharp tang.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Combine the boiling milk with the tomatoes. Acidic tomatoes can curdle hot milk when they meet, so the milk and tomatoes should be combined carefully and served right away. Baking soda is added to the tomatoes first to reduce acidity and help prevent this.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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