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Cream of Tomato Soup

A tomato soup thickened with cream sauce and milk, finished with baking soda and served with cracker dust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Cream of Tomato Soup

Why it works: Cream and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,787 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Cream of Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato base

  1. Pour the tomatoes into a pot.

  2. Add 1 cup of water.

  3. Stew the tomatoes until soft enough to mash through a strainer.

  4. Add 1 scant teaspoon of baking soda to the tomatoes before removing from heat.

Finish the soup

  1. Prepare the cream sauce.

  2. Add 1 pint of milk to the cream sauce.

  3. Stir in the strained tomatoes until well blended.

  4. Serve with cracker dust.

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. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Tomato + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,469 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  4. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Sauce + milktop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Canned tomatoes
Provide the main body, tomato flavor and acidity of the soup.
Cream sauce
Adds richness and a smooth, thick texture to the soup.
Milk
Thins the base and adds creaminess and mild sweetness.
Baking soda
Neutralizes some of the tomato's acidity, which helps prevent the milk from curdling.

The step that matters

Stir in the strained tomatoes until well blended. Tomatoes are acidic, and acid can make milk-based sauces curdle or separate when they meet. Adding the baking soda beforehand neutralizes some of that acid, and stirring steadily until fully blended keeps the soup smooth.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sauce, milk. 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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