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Tomato Bisque

A creamy tomato soup made with canned tomatoes, milk, and thickened with corn starch.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Tomato Bisque

Why it works: Tomato and corn match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,099 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Tomato Bisque

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato base

  1. Stew the tomatoes for 30 minutes with salt, pepper, and sugar.

  2. Pass through a fine colander back into the saucepan and heat to boiling.

Make the milk sauce

  1. Scald the milk in another vessel, add corn starch and butter, stirring until thickened.

Combine and serve

  1. Mix with the tomatoes, bring to a quick boil, 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. Tomato + corntop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  5. Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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 flavour of the soup.
Milk
Adds creaminess and a smooth, rich texture to the bisque.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk as it heats, giving the bisque body.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, rounding out the flavour and mouthfeel.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the tomatoes with a touch of sweetness.

The step that matters

Stirring the milk while it thickens. Corn starch must be stirred as the milk heats; otherwise it can clump or scorch on the bottom. Once starch granules swell in hot liquid, they thicken the sauce, so even heating and constant stirring give a smooth, evenly thickened result.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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