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 tomatoes
Stew the can of tomatoes until heated through.
Stir a pinch of baking soda into the stewed tomatoes to reduce acidity.
Make the bisque
In a separate pot, bring the milk to a boil in a double boiler.
Mix the flour with a little cold milk, then stir it into the boiling milk.
Let the mixture boil for 10 minutes, then add the butter, salt, and pepper.
Strain the tomatoes into the milk mixture and serve immediately.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,923 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Tomato + milktop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,226 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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
- Tomatoes
- Provide the main body, acidity and tomato flavour of the bisque.
- Milk
- Forms the creamy base and gives the soup its smooth, rich body.
- Flour
- Thickens the milk as it boils, giving the bisque a smoother, heavier texture.
- Butter
- Adds fat, richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished soup.
- Baking soda
- Neutralises some of the tomatoes' acidity, softening the flavour and reducing sharpness.
The step that matters
Adding the tomatoes to the hot milk. Tomato acid combined with hot milk can curdle it. Adding the baking soda to the tomatoes first lowers acidity, and serving right away keeps the soup smooth.
Swap the tomato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, flour, butter, egg, pepper):
- Capsicumfits better
- Potatofits better
- Asparagusfits better
- Tomatothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, butter, egg, 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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