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Mock Oyster Soup

A soup made with tomatoes, milk, butter, crackers, baking soda, salt, and pepper.

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

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Bring the tomatoes to a boil in a granite iron vessel.

  2. Add the baking soda and stir.

  3. Pour in the milk and bring to a boil again.

  4. Stir in the butter and crushed crackers.

  5. Season with salt and pepper 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. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Walnut + peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,039 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Tomato + walnuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together498 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide acidity and body as the base of the soup.
Baking soda
Neutralizes tomato acidity so the milk is less likely to curdle.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid that gives the soup its body.
Crackers
Thicken the soup as they soak up liquid and soften.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded flavor.

The step that matters

Adding the baking soda to the tomatoes. Baking soda reacts with tomato acid and releases gas, causing foaming. Adding it while the tomatoes are hot and then pouring in milk afterward helps keep the milk from curdling, so the soup stays smooth.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Lima beansfits about as well
  3. Chickpeafits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, milk, 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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