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Soup

Cream of Tomato Soup

A tomato soup thickened with milk, butter, and flour, seasoned with mace, bay leaf, parsley, baking soda, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Cream of Tomato Soup

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 34,122 recipes mention both. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cream of Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the milk base

  1. Boil the milk in a double boiler.

  2. Combine butter and flour, then add to the boiling milk, stirring constantly until thickened.

  3. Add mace, bay leaf, and parsley to the milk.

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Let the tomatoes sit in another pan for 15 minutes.

  2. Mix baking soda and sugar into the tomatoes, then strain the tomatoes through a coarse sieve.

Combine and serve

  1. Once ready to serve, combine the strained tomatoes with the boiling milk.

  2. Season with salt and pepper to taste and serve immediately.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together5,398 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour share little aroma chemistry, yet 124,287 recipes mention both: they likely 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

Milk
Forms the creamy liquid base that gives the soup its body and smoothness.
Tomatoes
Provide the main flavor and acidity of the soup.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the sauce base.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth, lightly bodied sauce when cooked with the butter.
Baking soda
Neutralizes some of the tomato acidity, reducing the risk of curdling the milk.

The step that matters

Combine the strained tomatoes with the boiling milk. Tomato acid can curdle hot milk. Adding the tomatoes only at the last moment, with the milk at a boil and the tomatoes already treated with baking soda, helps keep the soup smooth.

Flavor stand-ins for the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonbetter flavor fit
  2. Thymebetter flavor fit
  3. Cardamombetter flavor fit
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, tomato, butter, flour, sugar, parsley, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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