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Mock Bisque Soup

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

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 pan, then remove the onion.

  2. In a bowl, mix the flour with cold water until smooth, then stir the mixture into the milk.

  3. Cook the milk mixture for 20 minutes, stirring constantly to avoid lumps.

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. In another pan, cook the tomatoes with sugar for 15 minutes.

  2. Add baking soda, then strain through a sieve.

Combine and serve

  1. Combine the tomato mixture with the milk mixture and strain into a tureen.

  2. Add butter, salt, and pepper to taste.

  3. Serve.

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. Tomato + oniontop 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 gives it its body.
Canned tomatoes
Provide the acidity and main flavour of the soup.
Flour
Thickens the milk mixture so the soup becomes smooth and creamy.
Baking soda
Neutralises some of the tomato's acidity, keeping the soup from curdling.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Cooking the milk mixture. Flour mixed into hot milk can clump, so stirring constantly for the full 20 minutes keeps it smooth. Milk can also scorch or curdle when heated for long periods, so gentle, steady heat matters.

Swap the onion

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

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

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