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Cream of Tomato Soup

A tomato soup thickened with a butter and flour white sauce.

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

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and 81,283 recipes mention both. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cream of Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato base

  1. In a pot, cover and stew the tomatoes slowly for 30 to 60 minutes.

  2. Rinse the tomatoes through a strainer and add baking soda while hot.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. In a separate pan, make a white sauce using butter and flour.

  2. Combine the tomato juice with the white sauce.

  3. Serve immediately.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Tomato + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together2,226 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together6,918 recipes

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

Butter and flour share little aroma chemistry, yet 124,287 recipes mention both: they likely 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, acidity and flavor of the soup.
Baking soda
Neutralizes tomato acidity, reducing sourness and keeping the soup from curdling with milk.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor and giving the sauce a smooth texture.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a white sauce that gives the soup body.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness, forming the smooth base of the soup.

The step that matters

Adding baking soda to the hot tomatoes. Baking soda neutralizes acid and causes foaming. Adding it while the tomatoes are hot helps it dissolve and react evenly, so the soup stays smooth when the acidic tomatoes meet the milk.

Flavor stand-ins for the white pepper

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

  1. Cinnamonbetter flavor fit
  2. Jalapenobetter flavor fit
  3. Capersbetter flavor fit
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, butter, flour, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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