Skip to main content
Main

Cream Tomato Soup

A tomato soup thickened with milk and butter, finished with rolled crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Cream 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 ↓

Cream Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Place the tomatoes in a pot over medium heat and stew until soft, adding the baking soda.

  2. Strain the mixture to remove seeds.

  3. Return the strained mixture to the pot and add the hot milk.

  4. Season with salt, pepper, and butter.

  5. Stir in the rolled crackers and serve hot.

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. Pepper + buttertop 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 tangy flavor of the soup once stewed and strained.
Baking soda
Neutralizes tomato acidity, softening the flavor and helping the soup avoid curdling with milk.
Milk
Adds richness and creaminess, giving the soup its smooth, pale body.
Butter
Adds fat for a rounder, richer mouthfeel and flavor.
Rolled crackers
Thicken the soup slightly as they absorb liquid and soften.

The step that matters

Adding the hot milk to the tomatoes. Tomato acid can cause milk to curdle. The baking soda neutralizes much of that acidity, and adding hot milk to the hot strained tomato base, rather than letting it cool or boil hard, helps keep the soup smooth.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipesTomato FrittersTomato Fritters23 recipes