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Cream of Tomato Soup

A creamy tomato soup made with milk, flour, and tomato soup concentrate.

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

  1. Heat the milk in a saucepan until it reaches a boiling point.

  2. In a small bowl, mix the flour with a little cold milk to create a smooth paste.

  3. Stir the flour mixture into the boiling milk.

  4. Add the tomato soup and stir well.

  5. Dissolve the baking soda in the boiling water and add it to the soup.

  6. Season with butter 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.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + tomatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,226 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

Milk
Forms the creamy base of the soup.
Flour
Thickens the milk so the soup becomes smooth and body-rich.
Tomato soup
Provides the main tomato flavour and colour.
Baking soda
Neutralises some tomato acidity, mellowing the flavour.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour paste into the boiling milk. Flour lumps form if it is added as dry powder or the paste is not smooth. Mixing it with cold milk first lets the starch disperse evenly, so it thickens the soup without clumps.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, butter. 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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