Skip to main content
Main

Cream of Tomato, or Mock Bisque

A creamy tomato soup made with canned tomatoes, milk, butter, flour, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Cream of Tomato, or Mock Bisque

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato base

  1. Combine the tomatoes, water, cloves, peppercorns, sugar, and baking soda in a pot. Stew until the tomatoes are tender.

  2. Strain the mixture, removing the skin and seeds.

Make the cream sauce

  1. In a separate pan, cook the butter and flour together.

  2. Add the cold milk to the butter and flour, stirring constantly until it forms a smooth sauce.

Combine and serve

  1. Stir in 1 pint of the stewed and strained tomatoes. Season with pepper, salt, and cayenne.

  2. Heat the soup until scalding hot and serve immediately. If it curdles, beat with a Dover egg‑beater until smooth.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

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

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

Canned tomatoes
Provide the main body, acidity and flavor of the soup.
Rich milk
Adds creaminess and a smooth, rich texture to the soup.
Butter and flour
Form a roux that thickens the milk into a smooth sauce.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the tomatoes with a touch of sweetness.
Baking soda
Neutralizes some of the tomato acidity so the milk is less likely to curdle.

The step that matters

Adding the cold milk to the butter and flour. Stirring constantly as the cold milk goes into the hot roux keeps the starch smooth and prevents lumps. Combining hot tomatoes with milk that is too acidic or too hot can cause curdling, so the soup is heated only until scalding.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, butter, flour. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipesCream Tomato SoupCream Tomato Soup28 recipesTomato FrittersTomato Fritters23 recipes