Skip to main content
Main

Tomato Cream Soup

A soup made from tomatoes, rice, water, pepper, butter, flour, baking soda, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Tomato and rice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,065 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Tomato Cream Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato base

  1. Combine tomatoes, rice, water, and pepper in a stew pan.

  2. Boil slowly until the rice is tender.

  3. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve.

  4. Return the strained mixture to the heat.

Thicken and finish

  1. Mix butter and flour until smooth.

  2. Stir the mixture into the soup.

  3. Dissolve baking soda in a little cold water.

  4. Heat the milk to boiling.

  5. Add the dissolved baking soda to the tomato mixture.

  6. Add the hot milk to the mixture.

  7. Serve immediately without reheating, ensuring both the tomatoes and milk are very hot to prevent curdling.

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.

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 + ricetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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.
Rice
Cooks soft and breaks down, adding body and thickness to the purée.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, smoothing the flour-thickened base.
Flour
Thickens the soup, giving it a smooth, creamy body.
Baking soda
Neutralises tomato acidity so the milk is less likely to curdle.
Milk
Adds creaminess and richness, turning the soup into a cream soup.

The step that matters

Adding the hot milk to the tomato mixture. Tomato acid can make milk curdle when cold or cooled milk is added. Both the tomato mixture and the milk should be very hot, and the soup should be served immediately without reheating, to keep it smooth.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, pepper, butter, flour, milk. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesRice FrittersRice Fritters84 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipes