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Mock Bisque

A creamy tomato-based mock bisque served with crackers or croutons.

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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the milk base

  1. Heat 1 quart of milk in a double boiler.

  2. Fry 1 slice of onion in 1 tablespoon of butter over low heat for 5 minutes without browning.

  3. Remove the onion, add 1 tablespoon of cornstarch, and stir until smooth.

  4. Gradually add a little milk to the cornstarch mixture, stirring until creamy, and let it simmer for 5 minutes.

Add the tomatoes and serve

  1. In an agate stewpan, bring ½ can of tomatoes to a boil, then add ¼ teaspoon of baking soda and 1 teaspoon of salt.

  2. Remove from heat and let cool briefly, then strain the tomatoes into the thickened milk.

  3. Serve with crisp crackers or croutons.

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.

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

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

  3. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Milk + tomatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,226 recipes

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

  5. Milk + oniontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

What each ingredient does

Milk
Forms the creamy liquid base of the bisque.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk into a smooth, creamy body when heated.
Tomatoes
Supply the main flavor and acidity of the soup.
Baking soda
Neutralizes some tomato acidity, reducing the risk of curdling the milk.

The step that matters

Adding the tomatoes to the milk. Tomato acid can curdle hot milk. Letting the tomatoes cool briefly before straining them into the thickened milk helps keep the mixture smooth, and the baking soda in the tomatoes reduces acidity.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, onion. 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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