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Mock Bisque

A tomato-based bisque thickened with corn starch, flavored with bay leaf, celery, peppercorns, and Worcestershire sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,377 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Mock Bisque

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato base

  1. Stew the tomatoes with sugar, bay leaf, celery, peppercorns, and clove for 15 minutes.

  2. Add baking soda to the tomato mixture.

  3. Remove the bay leaf, celery, peppercorns, and clove from the tomato mixture.

  4. Strain the tomato mixture through a sieve.

Make the milk base

  1. In a separate saucepan, heat the milk with the onion until boiling.

  2. Remove the onion.

  3. Thicken the milk with corn starch, cooking for 20 minutes while stirring constantly.

Combine and serve

  1. In a tureen, combine butter, salt, and Worcestershire sauce.

  2. Mix the tomato mixture with the butter mixture.

  3. Strain the combined mixture into the tureen.

  4. Serve with croutons.

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 + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  3. Celery + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

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

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

  5. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 and acidic tomato flavour of the soup.
Milk
Forms the creamy base that gives the bisque its smooth, rich body.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk as it cooks, giving the soup its body.
Baking soda
Neutralises some tomato acidity, softening the flavour and colour of the soup.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, rounding out the flavour and mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Thicken the milk with corn starch. Corn starch must be stirred constantly while cooking so it does not clump or scorch on the bottom of the pan. Starch granules only thicken evenly when they are dispersed and heated fully, so the milk becomes smooth and lightly thickened.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, sugar, celery, milk, onion, corn, butter. 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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