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Tomato Cream Soup
In a saucepan put one-half of a can of tomatoes, one small onion, one teaspoonful of salt, one teaspoonful of sugar, and one quarter of a teaspoonful of white pepper or paprika and simmer for fifteen minutes; then press through a sieve and return to the fire to keep hot. Scald one quart of milk in a double boiler and thicken it with two tablespoonfuls of flour and one tablespoonful of butter rubbed to a paste. A moment before the soup is to be sent to the table take both pans from the fire; into the tomato stir one-quarter of a teaspoonful of soda and when it ceases to foam, stir slowly into the thickened milk. Send at once to the table, with croutons of fried bread..
A cream of tomato in the older style, where a pinch of soda is doing the work that careful technique does now. The order of combining is the whole recipe.
- The hinge: tomato into milk, off the heatBoth pans come off the burner first, and the tomato goes into the milk, never the reverse. Adding hot acid to hot milk over direct heat is the reliable way to get a grainy, separated soup.
- What the soda is forThe quarter teaspoon of baking soda neutralises enough of the tomato's acid to keep the milk from curdling. It also flattens the tomato flavour and can leave a faint soapy note, so use a scant measure and let it finish foaming before you combine. Thickening the milk well, as the recipe does, is the more important safeguard.
- "Half a can of tomatoes"Genuinely ambiguous: canned tomatoes of the period came in several sizes, including those later standardised as No. 2 and No. 3 cans, roughly 20 oz and 32 oz. Half of a modern 28 oz can, about 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 cups with juice, sits in the right range against a quart of milk.
- The butter and flour pasteTwo tablespoons flour rubbed into one tablespoon butter is a flour-heavy version of the same idea as a beurre manié. Work it smooth, then whisk it into the scalded milk in small pieces and hold it at a bare simmer a few minutes so the flour loses its raw taste.
- Double boilerUsed because milk scorches on a coal range. A heavy saucepan over low heat works if you stir; scald means bringing it to about 180F, when the surface shivers and a rim of bubbles forms at the edge.
- White pepper or paprikaEither seasons without leaving black flecks in a pale soup. Paprika of the period would have been the plain sweet kind rather than smoked.
- SievingPress the simmered tomato and onion through a fine sieve and discard the skins and seeds. A blender first, then the sieve, gives a smoother result with less work.
- YieldAbout a quart and a half finished, four to six servings. Serve immediately; reheating a soda-corrected tomato soup tends to break it.
Cream of tomato soup depends entirely on canned tomatoes, and its spread through American cookbooks tracks the growth of commercial canning after the Civil War, when a can of tomatoes became one of the cheapest reliable things in a winter pantry. The soda trick appears in household manuals throughout the second half of the nineteenth century as one answer to curdling. The croutons of fried bread are the period's usual finish for a smooth puréed soup, supplying the texture a strained soup lacks.