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Cream of Tomato Soup

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Cream of Tomato Soup

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 of Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Cook the tomatoes with the onion and salt for 5 minutes.

  2. Add the baking soda and stir until the mixture stops frothing.

  3. Strain the mixture and add it to the White Sauce made from the remaining ingredients.

Serve

  1. 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.

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. 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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 flavor and acidity, forming the body of the soup.
Milk
Gives the soup its creamy body and mild richness.
Flour
Thickens the white sauce, giving the soup structure and body.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and carries flavor in the white sauce.
Baking soda
Neutralizes the tomatoes' acidity, which reduces the risk of curdling the milk.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and depth to the cooked tomatoes.

The step that matters

Adding the baking soda to the tomatoes. Baking soda neutralizes the tomatoes' acidity and foams as it reacts. Stir until the frothing stops so the reaction finishes before straining. Acidic tomatoes can curdle milk, so neutralizing them first matters.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, milk, flour, 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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