Skip to main content
Main

Tomato Bisque

A creamy tomato soup thickened with corn starch and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
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

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Cook the tomatoes

  1. Stew the tomatoes with boiling water and onion for 30 minutes.

  2. Add sugar, salt, and pepper to the mixture.

Make the cream sauce

  1. Heat the cream and stir in the baking soda.

  2. Mix butter and corn starch to a paste, then thin with a little hot cream.

  3. Stir the paste into the cream just as it begins to boil.

  4. Cook until well thickened.

Finish and serve

  1. Press the tomatoes through a colander, then add the cream and rolled crackers.

  2. 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 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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  4. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Onion + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,205 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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, moisture and tangy acidity of the soup.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture to the bisque.
Baking soda
Neutralizes some of the tomato acid, making the cream less likely to curdle.
Corn starch
Thickens the bisque as it heats, giving it a velvety body.
Butter
Adds fat for a rounder flavor and silkier mouthfeel.
Rolled crackers
Add extra body and help thicken the soup further.

The step that matters

Stir the paste into the cream just as it begins to boil. Starch thickens only when hot and dispersed. Stirring the butter-starch paste into hot cream while stirring constantly spreads it evenly and prevents lumps, while adding it too early or cold leaves it unthickened or clumped.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar, onion, corn, 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.

More tomato bisque recipes

Soup 6 See all 83 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCorn FrittersCorn Fritters203 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesCream of Corn SoupCream of Corn Soup50 recipes