Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and 81,283 recipes mention both. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Cream of Tomato Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Make the soup
Heat the desired amount of milk in a double boiler.
Simmer the tomatoes and finely chopped onion in a separate pot until the tomatoes are thoroughly cooked.
Strain the tomato mixture and add it to the heated milk.
Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper, then stir in the butter.
Serve
Serve hot with wafers.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together17,923 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together20,633 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together68,474 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together42,912 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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 flavour of the soup once cooked and strained.
- Milk
- Forms the creamy base that gives the soup its smooth, rich texture.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness, rounding out the flavour and mouthfeel at the end.
- Onion
- Adds savoury aromatic depth that complements the tomatoes as it simmers.
The step that matters
Strain the tomato mixture. Straining removes skins and seeds so the soup turns smooth; leftover fibre would make it grainy. Adding the hot tomato to milk should be done steadily while stirring to avoid curdling.
Flavor stand-ins for the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, tomato, pepper, butter):
- Capsicumbetter flavor fit
- Potatobetter flavor fit
- Carrotabout as good a flavor fit
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, tomato, pepper, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).
“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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