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Sister Mollie's Tomato Bisque

A tomato bisque made with tomatoes, water, flour, sugar, milk, butter, salt, pepper, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Sister Mollie's Tomato Bisque

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomato base

  1. Boil the tomatoes and cold water until very soft.

  2. Strain the mixture through a sieve and add salt and pepper.

  3. Return the mixture to the heat and boil.

Thicken and serve

  1. Add the flour mixed smoothly in water.

  2. Add the butter and sugar.

  3. Add the hot milk.

  4. Place 1 teaspoon of baking soda in the serving tureen.

  5. When the soup reaches a boiling point, pour it into the tureen.

  6. Mix the soup well.

  7. Serve quickly.

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. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Flour and butter 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

Tomatoes
Provide the main body and tomato flavor of the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup so it has a smooth, body-rich texture.
Milk
Adds creaminess and richness to the tomato base.
Baking soda
Neutralizes the tomatoes' acidity, which helps keep the milk from curdling.
Butter
Adds fat for a richer, smoother mouthfeel.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the tomatoes with sweetness.

The step that matters

Adding the hot milk to the tomato soup. Tomatoes are acidic, and acid can curdle hot milk. Baking soda neutralizes acid, so it is placed in the tureen before the soup is poured in. Serving quickly keeps the soup from separating.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, 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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