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Soup

Cream Tomato

A creamy tomato soup made with tomatoes, onion, sweet milk, butter, salt, pepper, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Cream Tomato

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the soup

  1. Slice the onion finely.

  2. Combine the tomatoes and onion in a pot.

  3. Cook the mixture on the stove for 10 to 15 minutes.

  4. Dissolve a pinch of baking soda in a little hot water and add the dissolved baking soda to the pot.

  5. Pour in 1 quart of sweet milk and bring the mixture to a boil.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove from heat.

  2. Add the cooked tomatoes, butter, salt, and pepper.

  3. 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.

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

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

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

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

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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, acidity and tomato flavour of the soup.
Sweet milk
Forms the creamy base that gives the soup its smooth, rich texture.
Baking soda
Neutralises some of the tomato acidity so the milk is less likely to curdle.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Adding the milk to the hot tomato mixture. Tomato is acidic, and acid can curdle milk when they are heated together. The baking soda raises the pH to reduce this risk, and keeping the heat controlled helps the soup stay smooth.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, 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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