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Soup

Tomato Cream Soup

A tomato soup thickened with rice and butter, finished with milk and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and rice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,065 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Tomato Cream Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Run the tomatoes through a flour sifter.

  2. In a pot, combine the sifted tomatoes, water, salt, and rice.

  3. Boil until the rice is done, about 1 hour.

  4. Add the baking soda and skim the surface.

  5. Stir in the milk and bring to a boil.

Finish with butter and flour

  1. In a separate bowl, cream the butter and flour together, then add to the soup.

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.

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. Tomato + ricetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 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).

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

Tomatoes
Form the base of the soup and provide its main flavor and acidity.
Rice
Thickens the soup as its starch softens during the long simmer.
Baking soda
Neutralizes the tomatoes' acidity, reducing sharpness and helping the milk stay smooth.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness, softening the tomato flavor.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the soup a smoother mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the butter mixture so it blends into the soup and adds body.

The step that matters

Adding the baking soda. Baking soda reacts strongly with acid and foams. Adding it at the right point, then skimming the surface, controls the foam and keeps the soup from tasting soapy or going flat.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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