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Mock Bisque Soup

A tomato-based bisque soup thickened with milk and flour, seasoned with salt, pepper, sugar, and Tabasco sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 milk base

  1. Scald the onion with the milk.

  2. Remove the onion and thicken the milk with flour diluted in cold water, ensuring no lumps remain.

  3. Cook in a double boiler for twenty minutes, stirring constantly at first, then occasionally.

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. In a saucepan, cook the tomatoes until most moisture is gone, yielding about two cups of pulp.

  2. Rub the tomato pulp through a strainer, then add sugar and baking soda.

Combine and serve

  1. Combine the tomato mixture with the thickened milk, then strain into a hot soup tureen over butter, salt, pepper, and Tabasco sauce.

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. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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 body of the soup once thickened with flour.
Flour
Thickens the scalded milk into a smooth, lump-free base.
Tomatoes
Provide the main flavour and acidity, reduced and strained into pulp.
Baking soda
Neutralises some of the tomato acidity, softening the sharp taste.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, melting into the hot soup for mouthfeel.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the tomatoes with a touch of sweetness.

The step that matters

Thicken the milk without lumps. Flour must be diluted in cold water before it meets hot milk; added dry or undiluted it clumps, and the starch cannot disperse evenly to give a smooth thickened base.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, flour, tomato, pepper, sugar, sauce. 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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