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Tomato Bisque

A soup made from a porter‑house roast bone, tomatoes, flour, onion juice, milk, baking soda, salt and pepper.

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

Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomato Bisque

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Soak the porter-house roast bone in 1 quart of cold water for 1 hour.

  2. Bring the water to a boil.

  3. Cook gently for about 4 hours until reduced to 1 cup.

Finish the bisque

  1. Add ½ cup of tomatoes mixed with 2 teaspoons of flour and 1 teaspoon of onion juice, then boil gently for 30 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture, skim off the fat, and return it to the pot.

  3. Dissolve a pinch of baking soda in ½ cup of milk and add the milk mixture to the pot.

  4. Stir well while heating. When it boils, season to taste.

  5. Serve.

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. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 flavour and body of the bisque.
Flour
Thickens the bisque as it cooks, giving it body.
Milk
Adds richness and a creamy, smooth texture to the bisque.
Baking soda
Neutralises some tomato acidity, mellowing the flavour and softening the tang.

The step that matters

Adding the milk mixture. Baking soda reacts with acid to release gas and can curdle milk when it meets acidic tomato liquid. Dissolving it in the milk first and stirring well while heating keeps the bisque smooth.

Swap the onion

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

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

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