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Mock-bisque Soup

A tomato-based soup thickened with milk and corn starch, served as a mock bisque.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and corn match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,099 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Mock-bisque Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomato

  1. Boil the tomatoes alone for 30 minutes, adding the baking soda, salt, pepper, and sugar.

  2. When the tomatoes are soft, strain them through a fine sieve.

Make the milk base

  1. Heat the milk in a double boiler or a tin pail set in a kettle of water until scalding.

  2. Thicken the milk with the corn-starch mixed with a little cold milk.

Combine and serve

  1. Combine the boiling milk with the strained tomatoes.

  2. Stir the mixture.

  3. Serve immediately.

  4. Do not heat the combined soup after mixing, or the milk will curdle.

  5. If preparing in advance, keep the tomato and milk separate until ready to 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.

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 + corntop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,099 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  5. Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 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

Tomato
Provides the main flavour and body of the soup once boiled and strained.
Milk
Forms the creamy base of the soup and carries its richness.
Corn-starch
Thickens the milk so the soup has a smooth, body-rich texture.
Baking soda
Neutralises some tomato acidity, which helps keep the milk from curdling.

The step that matters

Do not reheat the combined soup. Tomato is acidic and milk proteins can curdle when hot acidic liquid is combined and heated further, so the soup should be served right after mixing.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Sweet potatofits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, corn, sugar, 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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