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Mock Bisque Soup

A tomato-based soup made with milk, flour, butter, and baking soda.

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

Mock Bisque Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Stew the canned tomatoes in a pot, seasoning with salt and pepper.

  2. Add a pinch of baking soda to the tomatoes.

Make the soup

  1. Boil the milk in a separate pot.

  2. Combine the boiled milk with the stewed tomatoes.

  3. Cream the flour and butter together, then slowly stir into the boiling mixture.

  4. Boil everything together for 10 minutes, then strain and serve.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Tomato + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Canned tomatoes
Provide the main body, acidity and flavor of the soup.
Milk
Supplies the creamy base and mild sweetness of the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup slightly as it cooks with the butter.
Butter
Adds richness and smooths the flour into the liquid.
Baking soda
Neutralizes some tomato acidity, which helps keep the milk from curdling.

The step that matters

Combining the boiled milk with the tomatoes. Tomatoes are acidic, and acid can curdle hot milk. Adding the baking soda to the tomatoes first and keeping the mixture from overheating helps the soup stay smooth.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, butter, 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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