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Tomato Cream Soup

A creamy tomato soup with rice, butter, flour, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and rice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,065 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Tomato Cream Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and slice the tomatoes or open the can.

  2. Rinse the rice in cold water.

  3. In a bowl, mix the butter and flour to form a smooth paste.

Make the soup

  1. In a soup pot, heat the tomatoes with 1 quart of cold water gradually.

  2. Once hot, add another quart of cold water and bring to a boil.

  3. Stir in the rice, pepper, and salt, and boil until the rice is tender but not broken.

  4. Add the butter and flour paste, baking soda, and enough milk to thicken the soup.

  5. Boil for a few moments to cook the flour thoroughly, then 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.

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. Tomato + ricetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

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

  5. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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, acidity and flavour of the soup.
Rice
Softens as it cooks, adding body and making the soup heartier.
Butter and flour paste
Flour thickens the liquid as it heats, while butter adds richness and smoothness.
Milk
Adds creaminess and helps thicken the soup to a cream texture.
Baking soda
Neutralises some of the tomato acidity, mellowing the flavour and softening the tomatoes.

The step that matters

Adding the butter and flour paste. Flour lumps if it goes into hot liquid unblended, so it must be a smooth paste first. Boiling it briefly afterward cooks out the raw flour taste and fully thickens the soup.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, butter, flour, pepper, milk. 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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