Home › Soups › Cream of Tomato Soup
Cream of Tomato Soup
1/2 can tomatoes 1 slice onion 2 teaspoons sugar 4 tablespoons flour 1/4 teaspoon soda 1 teaspoon salt 1 quart milk 1/8 teaspoon pepper 1/3 cup butter Scald milk with onion, remove onion, and thicken milk with flour diluted with cold water until thin enough to pour, being careful that the mixture is free from lumps; cook twenty minutes, stirring constantly at first. Cook tomatoes with sugar fifteen minutes, add soda, and rub through a sieve; combine mixtures, and strain into tureen over butter, salt, and pepper.
A white sauce and a tomato purée brought together at the last moment, with baking soda as insurance against curdling. The whole dish turns on how the two mixtures meet.
- Combine off the heat, and serve at onceTomato acid curdles hot milk. Pour the tomato into the thickened milk (not the reverse), keep it below a simmer, and send it to the table immediately rather than holding it hot.
- "1/2 can tomatoes"Period can sizes varied, commonly somewhere between about 20 oz and a quart, so this probably means somewhere in the range of 1 1/4 to 2 cups of canned tomatoes with their juice. A 14.5 oz can is close enough.
- The sodaThe recipe's 1/4 teaspoon neutralises enough acid to keep the milk from breaking. More than that flattens the tomato flavour and leaves a soapy edge, so measure it rather than guessing, and expect it to foam when added.
- Thickening the milkFour tablespoons of flour slaked in cold water and stirred into scalded milk gives a thin sauce. A roux made with part of the butter is easier to keep lump-free; whisk hard for the first two minutes, then cook gently the full twenty to lose the raw-flour taste.
- Butter in the tureenThe butter, salt and pepper go in the serving bowl and the soup is strained over them. This is a finishing enrichment, not cooked in; a third of a cup is generous by current taste and half that is defensible.
- StrainingThe tomatoes are sieved once and the finished soup strained again. A food mill or a fine sieve does the first job; skip the second only if you are content with a rougher texture.
- YieldA quart of milk plus the tomato makes about 5 to 5 1/2 cups, or four to six first-course servings.