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Cream Tomato Soup

A tomato soup thickened with milk and butter, served hot with salted wafers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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

Make the tomato base

  1. Boil the canned tomatoes and onion together.

  2. Rub the mixture through a sieve to remove solids.

  3. Season with salt and pepper.

Finish and serve

  1. Heat the milk to boiling point and add the butter.

  2. Stir the baking soda into the hot tomatoes.

  3. Combine the hot milk with the tomato mixture.

  4. Serve immediately with salted wafers.

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 + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Canned tomatoes
Provide the main body and acidic tomato flavour of the soup.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the acidity of the tomatoes.
Baking soda
Neutralises some tomato acidity and can cause curdling when added to the hot tomatoes.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the soup.

The step that matters

Combine the hot milk with the tomato mixture. Tomatoes are acidic and can curdle hot milk when combined, so the mixture should be kept hot but not boiling and added carefully to keep the soup smooth.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

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

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