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Mock Bisque Soup

A creamy tomato soup made with milk, butter, flour, and tomatoes, finished with baking soda to prevent curdling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 base

  1. Scald the milk in a double boiler.

  2. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  3. Stir in the flour, salt, and pepper until smooth.

  4. Add the mixture to the hot milk and cook for 10 minutes, stirring until smooth.

Prepare the tomatoes and serve

  1. Cook the tomatoes until soft, then mash through a strainer and add the baking soda.

  2. Combine the tomato mixture with the milk just before serving 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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + tomatotop 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

Milk
Forms the creamy liquid base that gives the soup its body and richness.
Tomatoes
Provide the main tomato flavor and acidity.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk mixture into a smooth, body-giving base.
Baking soda
Neutralizes tomato acidity, reducing sourness and curdling risk.

The step that matters

Combine the tomato mixture with the milk just before serving. Tomato acid can cause milk proteins to curdle when they meet at high heat. Adding the tomatoes to the hot milk at the last moment, with the baking soda already neutralizing some acidity, helps keep the soup smooth.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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