Skip to main content
Drink

Tomato Soup

A tomato soup made with tomatoes, water, baking soda, butter, flour, milk, salt, and pepper.

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

Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato base

  1. Combine ½ can of tomatoes and 1 pint of water in a pot.

  2. Heat until nearly boiling.

  3. Add ½ teaspoon baking soda.

  4. Strain the mixture through a colander.

Make the roux

  1. Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a separate pan.

  2. Mix in 1 tablespoon of flour.

  3. Season the butter and flour mixture with salt and pepper.

  4. Pour the mixture into the strained tomatoes.

Finish and serve

  1. Boil 1 quart of milk.

  2. Add the boiled milk to the tomatoes just before serving.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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

Tomatoes
Provide the main body, acidity and flavor of the soup.
Baking soda
Neutralizes some of the tomato's acidity, mellowing the flavor and reducing curdling risk.
Butter
Carries fat and flavor into the thickening base.
Flour
Thickens the butter and gives the soup a smoother, fuller body.
Milk
Adds creaminess, mild sweetness and a rich, smooth texture.

The step that matters

Add the boiled milk to the tomatoes just before serving. Acidic tomatoes can curdle hot milk, so the milk should be heated separately and combined at the last moment, after the tomato base has been neutralized and is hot but not boiling.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

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

More tomato soup recipes

Cream 27Clear 14Creamed 10Creamy 8French 8with Rice 8 See all 632 →

You might also like

Vegetable SoupVegetable Soup350 recipesRaspberry VinegarRaspberry Vinegar214 recipesBrown Coffee with EggBrown Coffee with Egg175 recipesBlackberry CordialBlackberry Cordial129 recipes