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Cue AM of Tomato, or Mock Bisque

A tomato soup made with stewed tomatoes, butter, flour, milk, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Cue AM of Tomato, or Mock Bisque

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomato base

  1. Stew the tomatoes, water, cloves, peppercorns, sugar, and baking soda together until the tomatoes are tender.

  2. Strain the mixture, removing the skin and seeds.

Make the sauce

  1. In a separate pan, cook the butter and flour together.

  2. Add the cold milk, stirring constantly until it forms a smooth sauce.

  3. Add 1 pint of the stewed and strained tomatoes.

  4. Season with salt and cayenne pepper.

Finish and serve

  1. Heat until scalding hot and serve immediately.

  2. If allowed to stand, the soup will curdle.

  3. If it curdles, beat with a Dover egg-beater until smooth.

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.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Tomato + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  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. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Tomatoes
Provide the main body, acidity and flavor of the soup.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the sauce base.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth sauce.
Milk
Gives the soup its creamy body and mellow flavor.
Baking soda
Neutralizes some tomato acidity, softening the flavor and helping prevent curdling.

The step that matters

Adding the cold milk to the butter and flour. Stirring constantly keeps the flour from forming lumps, so the sauce stays smooth. Acidic tomatoes added to milk can cause it to curdle, so the soup must be served hot and not left to stand.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, sugar, butter, milk, 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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