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Tomato Soup

A simple tomato soup made with tomatoes, water, baking soda, milk, butter, salt, pepper, served over rolled crackers.

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

Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Skin the tomatoes and cook them in 1 pint of water until soft.

  2. Strain the mixture through a colander to remove hard pieces.

  3. Stir in 1 teaspoon of baking soda and 1 quart of fresh milk.

  4. Add butter, coarse sea salt, and black pepper to taste.

  5. Let it boil for 1 minute.

Serve

  1. Pour into a tureen over rolled crackers.

  2. 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. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Yellow tomatoes
Provide the main body, acidity and flavor of the soup base.
Baking soda
Neutralizes tomato acidity so the milk is less likely to curdle.
Fresh milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness, turning the tomato base into a creamy soup.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Stir in the baking soda before the milk. Tomatoes are acidic, and adding milk to acidic tomato base can cause it to curdle. Baking soda raises the pH and helps keep the soup smooth, so it should be mixed in with the milk as written and not skipped.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Tomatothe original
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

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