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Mock Bisque Soup

A tomato-based soup thickened with cornstarch and finished with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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. Stew the tomatoes until soft enough to strain.

Make the soup

  1. Bring the milk to a boil, adding the cornstarch dissolved in a little cold milk.

  2. Let it boil very slowly in a double boiler for about 8 to 10 minutes.

  3. Add salt, pepper, and the strained tomatoes with a pinch of baking soda to prevent curdling.

  4. Finally, stir in the butter and serve with crackers.

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

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

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

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

  4. Butter + white peppertop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Tomato + white peppertop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together226 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl butyrate (fruity, apple).

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, and body once strained.
Milk
Forms the creamy base of the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel when stirred in at the end.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk as it heats, giving the soup body.

The step that matters

Adding the tomatoes to the hot milk. Tomato acid can curdle milk proteins when they meet heat. The pinch of baking soda raises the pH so the milk stays smooth, and the soup should not be allowed to boil hard once combined.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, milk, 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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