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Soup

Tomato Bisque Soup

A creamy tomato soup made with tomatoes, onions, milk, tomato juice, and optional cream, seasoned with salt, cayenne, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Tomato 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 ↓

Tomato Bisque Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato base

  1. Simmer the sliced onions and tomatoes together for 1 hour.

  2. Strain the mixture to separate the solids from the liquid.

Combine and finish

  1. Combine equal parts of milk and tomato juice in a pot.

  2. Heat the milk and tomato juice mixture.

  3. Add a pinch of baking soda to the hot tomato juice.

  4. Stir in the hot milk.

  5. Blend the flour into the butter.

  6. Add the flour-butter mixture to the pot.

  7. Bring the soup to a boil.

  8. If the tomatoes are very acidic, increase the baking soda slightly.

  9. Add 1 cup of cream 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. 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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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 tangy acidic flavor of the soup.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mellows the acidity of the tomatoes.
Baking soda
Neutralizes some tomato acid, reducing sharpness and preventing curdling of the milk.
Flour
Thickens the soup together with the butter, giving it body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps form the flour roux that thickens the soup.

The step that matters

Adding the baking soda to the hot tomato juice. Baking soda neutralizes tomato acid and causes foaming. Adding too much can make the soup taste soapy or bitter, while too little leaves it sharp and may let the milk curdle.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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