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Tomato Bisque

A tomato bisque made with tomatoes, baking soda, cornstarch, milk, sugar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Tomato Bisque

Why it works: Tomato and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,226 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Tomato Bisque

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the tomatoes, then strain them through a colander and a fine strainer.

  2. Return the strained tomatoes to the pot.

  3. Stir in baking soda, cornstarch (or crackers), and moisten with water.

  4. Add the milk and bring to a boil.

  5. Stir in sugar and salt to taste.

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

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

  2. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + sugartop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,667 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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
Provide the main body and tangy tomato flavor of the soup.
Baking soda
Neutralizes some of the tomato acidity, reducing curdling when milk is added.
Cornstarch
Thickens the soup as it heats, giving it a smooth, body-rich texture.
Milk
Adds richness, creaminess and a mellow body to the soup.

The step that matters

Adding the milk to the tomatoes. Tomatoes are acidic, and when hot acidic liquid meets milk proteins it can curdle. Baking soda is added first to lower the acidity, and the cornstarch helps keep the mixture smooth, so the soup should be brought to a boil gently and not allowed to separate.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, 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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