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 ↓
Cream of Tomato Bisque
Ingredients
Directions
Heat the can of tomato soup and an equal amount of milk separately until just before boiling.
Remove from heat and pour the hot soup into the hot milk, not the other way around.
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.
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Tomato + milktop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,226 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Tomato soup
- Provides the main tomato flavour and body of the bisque.
- Milk
- Adds creaminess and mellows the acidity of the tomato.
The step that matters
Pouring the soup into the milk. Adding the hot soup gradually to the hot milk, rather than the reverse, helps the mixture stay smooth. Adding a large amount of milk-based liquid to hot, acidic tomato can cause curdling, so the order matters.
“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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