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Cream Tomato Soup

A tomato soup made with tomatoes, onion, butter, flour, milk, salt, and pepper, blended smooth.

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

Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Cream Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Chop the tomatoes and onion.

Make the soup

  1. In a pot, melt butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the chopped onion and sauté until soft.

  3. Stir in flour and cook for 1 minute.

  4. Add tomatoes and cook for 10 minutes.

  5. Pour in milk and bring to a simmer.

  6. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

  7. Blend until smooth and serve hot.

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. Butter + milktop 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 + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 tomato flavor of the soup.
Onion
Softens into a sweet aromatic base that adds depth to the soup.
Butter
Carries flavor and adds richness, and helps cook the onion gently.
Flour
Thickens the soup with starch once cooked briefly in the butter.
Milk
Adds creaminess and a smoother, richer texture.

The step that matters

Stir in flour and cook for 1 minute. Cooking flour in the melted butter before adding liquid coats the starch granules so they disperse evenly, preventing lumps and removing the raw flour taste that would otherwise carry into the soup.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, butter, flour, milk, 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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