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Soup

French Tomato Soup

A tomato soup made with tomatoes, water, baking soda, milk, butter, onion, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

French Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato base

  1. Pour boiling water over the tomatoes and onion in a pot and boil for 15–20 minutes until nearly done.

  2. Strain and rub the mixture through a sieve.

Heat the milk

  1. In a separate pot, boil the milk and stir in the baking soda and butter.

  2. Once it boils, reduce heat to keep it hot.

Finish and serve

  1. Add salt and pepper to the strained tomatoes and let simmer for 5 minutes.

  2. Stir in the milk 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.

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

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

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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, flavour and acidity of the soup.
Milk
Adds creaminess and a smooth, rich body to the soup.
Baking soda
Neutralises tomato acidity so the milk is less likely to curdle.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel.
Onion
Adds savoury aromatic depth to the tomato base.

The step that matters

Stir in the milk and serve immediately. Hot, acidic tomato can curdle milk when they combine. Adding the warm milk to the strained tomatoes at the last moment and serving right away keeps the soup smooth. The baking soda helps buffer acidity, but prolonged heating still risks separation.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, butter, 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.

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