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Mock Bisque Soup

A tomato-based bisque made with milk, flour, butter, and baking soda.

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

Mock Bisque Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. In a pot, stew the tomatoes.

  2. Add the baking soda to the stewed tomatoes and stir well.

  3. Strain the tomato mixture.

Make the milk base

  1. In a double boiler, bring the milk to a boil, reserving ½ cup of milk to mix with the flour.

  2. Mix the flour smoothly with the reserved cold milk, then add it to the boiling milk and cook for 10 minutes.

  3. Add the butter, salt, and pepper to the milk.

Combine and serve

  1. Combine the milk mixture with the strained tomatoes and 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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 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 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

Canned tomatoes
Provide the main body, acidity and flavor of the soup.
Milk
Forms the creamy base of the soup.
Flour
Thickens the milk so the soup has body.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
Baking soda
Neutralizes some of the tomato acidity, softening its sharpness.

The step that matters

Adding the baking soda to the tomatoes. Baking soda reacts with acid in the tomatoes and releases carbon dioxide, which can foam the mixture. Stirring well and adding it before combining with the milk keeps the reaction even and reduces the risk of the milk curdling when the two are joined.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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