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Tomato Soup

A tomato soup made with canned tomatoes, milk, cornstarch, butter, baking soda, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Tomato Soup

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 ↓

Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato base

  1. Stew the can of tomatoes and strain them.

  2. Add a pinch of baking soda to reduce acidity.

Make the milk base

  1. In another saucepan, boil 3 pints of milk thickened with 1 tablespoon of cornstarch mixed with a little cold milk.

  2. Add a lump of butter the size of an egg, and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Combine and serve

  1. Mix the milk mixture with the strained tomatoes.

  2. Let all ingredients come to a boil and serve.

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

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

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the main flavour and body of the soup.
Baking soda
Neutralises some of the tomatoes' acidity, mellowing the flavour.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid base of the soup.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk so the soup becomes smooth and creamy.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the soup.

The step that matters

Adding the baking soda to the tomatoes. Baking soda reacts with acids and releases carbon dioxide, so too much makes the soup taste soapy or bitter and can curdle the milk. A small pinch is enough to soften acidity.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, egg, 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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