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Tomato Bisque Soup

A tomato bisque soup made with canned tomatoes, bay leaf, onion, spices, and finished with butter, flour, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Tomato Bisque Soup

Why it works: Parsley and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Tomato Bisque Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato base

  1. Mix the tomatoes, bay leaf, onion, sugar, cloves, baking soda, peppercorns, salt, and parsley in a pot. Bring to a boil, then let simmer for 20 minutes.

  2. Rub the mixture through a sieve.

Make the bisque

  1. Melt the butter in a pan. Add the flour to the melted butter.

  2. Gradually pour in the hot mixture while stirring constantly.

  3. Add the mixture to the scalded milk.

  4. 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. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Clove + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  4. Clove + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Canned tomatoes
Form the main body and flavor of the soup.
Butter
Fat that enriches the soup and carries flavor.
Flour
Thickens the soup into a smooth, creamy body when cooked with butter.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mellows the tomato's acidity.

The step that matters

Gradually pour in the hot mixture while stirring constantly. Adding hot liquid to a butter and flour roux slowly while stirring keeps the flour dispersed, preventing lumps and giving a smooth, evenly thickened bisque.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, sugar, clove, parsley, flour, celery, butter):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Okrafits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, sugar, clove, parsley, flour, celery, 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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