Name: Cream Tomato Soup
Ingredients: ½ teaspoon baking soda; 3 tablespoons butter; 4 cups milk; Salt to taste; Pepper to taste; Tomatoes (quantity not specified)

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

Scald the milk in a saucepan.
Thicken the milk with flour, stirring thoroughly, and cook for 10 minutes.
Cook the tomatoes for 10 minutes, then rub them through a sieve.
Add the baking soda to the tomato puree.
Pour the tomato mixture into the hot milk.
Strain if necessary.
Add butter, salt, and pepper just before serving.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Milk + tomatotop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,226 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + tomatotop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,918 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).