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Sauce

Tomato Cream

A sauce made by blending tomatoes and onions, thickened with butter, flour, and baking soda, then finished with milk and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the components

  1. Cook the tomatoes and chopped onion together, then strain the mixture.

  2. Boil the milk in a separate pot.

  3. Warm the sweet cream in another pot.

Make the sauce

  1. Stir the butter and flour (rubbed to a cream) into the strained tomato mixture and cook until it thickens.

  2. Add the baking soda to the thickened mixture.

Finish and serve

  1. Just before serving, pour the strained tomatoes into the boiling milk, then stir in the warmed cream.

  2. Season with pepper and coarse sea 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.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Form the main body and tangy, acidic flavour of the sauce.
Milk
Provides the liquid base and a soft, creamy body.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the butter.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and smoothness, and helps bind the flour.
Baking soda
Neutralises some tomato acidity, making the sauce milder and less likely to curdle.

The step that matters

Adding the tomatoes to the boiling milk. Tomatoes are acidic, and acid can make milk curdle when they meet, especially when hot. Adding the strained tomatoes just before serving, after the baking soda has reduced their acidity, keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, milk, cream, butter, flour, 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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