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Cream of Tomato Soup

A creamy soup made with milk, butter, flour, tomatoes, and seasonings.

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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the white sauce

  1. Cook the onion in the quart of milk.

  2. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  3. Add the flour to the melted butter.

  4. Season with pepper, salt, and sugar.

  5. Gradually add the hot milk, stirring until smooth.

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Heat the strained tomatoes.

  2. Add the baking soda to the heated tomatoes.

Combine and serve

  1. When bubbling stops, combine with the white sauce.

  2. Bring to a boil and serve immediately.

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. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

Flour
Thickens the milk and butter into a smooth white sauce as its starch swells when heated.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps form the base of the white sauce with flour.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the white sauce, giving body and creaminess.
Tomatoes
Provide the main flavor, acidity and color of the soup.
Baking soda
Neutralizes some of the tomato's acidity, reducing sharpness.
Sugar
Balances the tomatoes' acidity with a touch of sweetness.

The step that matters

Combining the tomatoes with the white sauce. Tomatoes are acidic, and acid can curdle hot milk. Neutralizing the tomatoes with baking soda first, and adding them to the sauce only when the bubbling has stopped, helps keep the soup smooth rather than separated.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

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