Why it works: Milk and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,226 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓
Tomato Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Make the soup
Bring the milk to a boil in a saucepan.
In a separate bowl, mix the cooked tomatoes with the baking soda.
Pour the hot milk over the tomato mixture.
Serve
Serve the soup over the rolled soda crackers.
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.
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Milk + tomatotop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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 liquid base of the soup and gives it a smooth, rich body.
- Cooked tomatoes
- Provide the main tomato flavor, acidity, and liquid for the soup.
- Baking soda
- Neutralizes the tomatoes' acidity, which helps keep the milk from curdling.
- Rolled soda crackers
- Soak up liquid and add body and texture when the soup is served over them.
The step that matters
Pour the hot milk over the tomato mixture. Tomatoes are acidic, and acid can make milk proteins clump and curdle when heated. The baking soda raises the pH to offset this, so the mixture stays smooth only if the tomatoes are already neutralized before the hot milk goes in.
“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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