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 ↓
Green Corn Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the corn
Cut the kernels from the corn ears with a sharp knife.
Boil the cobs in enough cold water to cover for 30 minutes, then strain.
Cook the corn pulp in the corn water for 20 minutes, then add the seasonings.
Make the soup
Melt the butter, stir in the flour until smooth, then mix into the hot milk.
After cooking for 10 minutes, add the corn and liquid along with the seasonings.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Milk + corntop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,324 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,165 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Butter
- Adds richness and carries flavor in the thickened milk base.
- Milk
- Forms the creamy body of the soup.
- Corn
- Provides the main sweetness and the green corn flavor.
- Flour
- Thickens the milk and butter mixture so the soup becomes smooth and body-rich.
The step that matters
Stirring the flour into the melted butter until smooth. Flour needs to be cooked briefly in fat before liquid is added, or it clumps and leaves a raw taste. Adding it to hot milk while stirring keeps the mixture smooth and evenly thickened.
“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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