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Tomato Bisque Soup

A tomato bisque soup made with tomatoes, white soup stock, butter, baking soda, milk, and arrowroot thickener.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Tomato Bisque Soup

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 ↓

Tomato Bisque Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup base

  1. Boil tomatoes and soup stock together for 10 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture through a puree strainer.

  3. Return the strained mixture to the fire and season with salt, pepper, and butter.

  4. Add baking soda as you would in ordinary tomato soup.

Add milk and thicken

  1. Stir in 1 quart of boiling milk.

  2. Mix 2 tablespoons of arrowroot with a little cold water or milk, then add to the soup.

  3. Stir constantly until the soup thickens.

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. Butter + milktop 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. Pepper + arrowroottop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together329 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Tomato + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,226 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + arrowroottop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the main flavor and body of the soup base.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness, turning the tomato base into a bisque.
Arrowroot
Thickens the soup into a smooth, glossy texture when heated.
Baking soda
Neutralizes some of the tomato's acidity, mellowing the flavor and reducing curdling risk.
Butter
Adds richness and a rounder mouthfeel to the soup.

The step that matters

Stir constantly until the soup thickens. Arrowroot starch can clump or turn gummy if left unstirred, so constant stirring keeps it dispersed and gives a smooth thickened texture.

Swap the arrowroot

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Arrowrootthe original

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