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Mock Bisque Soup

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Mock Bisque Soup

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 ↓

Mock Bisque Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the milk

  1. Scald the milk with the onion in a double boiler.

  2. Remove the onion.

  3. Thicken the milk with flour diluted in cold water to make a smooth paste.

  4. Cook the thickened milk in the double boiler for 20 minutes, stirring initially to prevent lumping.

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Cook the tomatoes with sugar for 20 minutes.

  2. Rub the tomato mixture through a sieve.

  3. Add baking soda to the tomato mixture.

Combine and serve

  1. Slowly incorporate the baking soda into the thickened milk.

  2. Strain the soup into a tureen over the butter, salt, and pepper.

  3. Serve immediately to prevent curdling.

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. Milk + buttertop 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. Onion + tomatotop 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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Milk
Forms the creamy base of the soup and carries the other flavours.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth, body-rich base.
Tomatoes
Provide the acidity and tomato flavour that give the bisque its character.
Baking soda
Neutralises the tomato acidity so the mixture is less likely to curdle the milk.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Adding the baking soda to the thickened milk. Baking soda reacts with the acidic tomato mixture and releases gas, and adding it too quickly can cause the milk to curdle. Adding it slowly and serving immediately helps keep the soup smooth.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

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