Skip to main content
Main

Tomato Soup

A soup made from tomatoes, water, baking soda, milk, butter, pepper, salt, and a cracker.

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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Boil the tomatoes with skins on in 1 quart of water.

  2. Place the tomatoes in a colander and mash them.

  3. Add 1 teaspoon of baking soda to the mashed tomatoes.

Make the milk base

  1. In a separate pot, boil 1 quart of milk.

  2. Stir in butter, pepper, and salt to the milk.

  3. Roll the cracker and add it to the milk mixture, then combine with the tomatoes and 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 + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Tomato + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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 flavor of the soup.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid base that makes the soup rich and smooth.
Baking soda
Neutralizes some of the tomato's acidity, which can cause milk to curdle.
Butter
Adds fat for a smoother mouthfeel and rounder flavor.

The step that matters

Adding the baking soda to the tomatoes. Baking soda reacts with the tomato's acid and produces gas, so it can foam up. Adding it before combining with the milk helps keep the milk from curdling when the two are mixed.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Tomatothe original
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

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

More tomato soup recipes

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

You might also like

Tomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipesTomato FrittersTomato Fritters23 recipesTomato PureeTomato Puree23 recipesMacaroni with Tomato SauceMacaroni with Tomato Sauce16 recipes