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Tomato Soup

A tomato soup made with sliced tomatoes, milk, butter, sugar, cornstarch, baking soda, salt, and pepper.

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

Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Boil the sliced tomatoes until soft.

  2. Strain the tomatoes and add sugar, salt, pepper, and baking soda.

  3. In a kettle, heat the milk until near boiling.

  4. Slowly add the strained tomatoes to the milk.

  5. Thicken the mixture with the cornstarch, which has been made smooth with the butter.

Serve

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

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

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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 body, flavor and acidity of the soup.
Milk
Forms the creamy base of the soup and adds richness.
Cornstarch
Thickens the soup as it heats, giving it body.
Butter
Adds fat and smoothness, helping the cornstarch blend without lumps.
Baking soda
Neutralizes some tomato acidity, softening the flavor and reducing curdling risk.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the tomatoes with mild sweetness.

The step that matters

Adding the tomatoes to the milk. Acidic tomatoes can curdle hot milk if added too quickly or at too high a heat. Adding the strained tomatoes slowly, while the milk is near boiling but not boiling, helps keep the milk smooth. Baking soda also helps by reducing acidity.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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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