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Cream of Tomato Soup

A tomato soup thickened with butter, cornstarch, and milk, seasoned with salt, pepper, sugar, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Cream of Tomato Soup

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cream of Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato base

  1. Cook the tomatoes until soft.

  2. Strain the tomatoes through a fine colander.

  3. Return the strained tomatoes to the heat.

  4. Season with salt, pepper, and sugar.

  5. Stir in the butter mixed with cornstarch until it begins to thicken.

Heat the milk and serve

  1. In another saucepan, heat the milk until scalding hot.

  2. Stir in the baking soda.

  3. Pour the hot milk into a tureen.

  4. Add the tomatoes while stirring vigorously.

  5. 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  4. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

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

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

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

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 and mellows the tomato's acidity.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps carry flavour through the soup.
Cornstarch
Thickens the soup as it heats, giving it a smooth body.
Tomatoes
Provide the main flavour, acidity, and body of the soup.
Baking soda
Neutralises some tomato acidity, though it can also cause curdling in the milk.

The step that matters

Adding the tomatoes to the hot milk. Tomato acid can curdle hot milk. Adding the tomatoes slowly while stirring vigorously, and keeping the milk very hot rather than boiling, helps the soup stay smooth.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, pepper, parsley, sugar. 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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