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Clam and Corn Soup

A soup made with canned corn, clams, butter, flour, cream, and seasonings, finished with popped corn.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Clam and Corn Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Chop the canned corn.

  2. Add it to 2 cups of water with the onion.

  3. Bring to a boil.

  4. Let simmer for 20 minutes.

  5. Rub the mixture through a sieve.

  6. Add the clam water.

Finish the soup

  1. In a separate pan, melt the butter.

  2. Add the flour, stirring constantly while gradually pouring in the hot mixture.

  3. Add the seasonings.

  4. Just before serving, stir in the cream.

  5. Garnish with popped corn.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Clam + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together840 recipes

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

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Corn
Provides the main body and sweet corn flavour of the soup.
Flour
Thickens the butter and liquid mixture into a smooth soup.
Butter
Carries flavour and forms the base for the flour thickener.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky, smooth texture at the end.
Clam water
Adds the savoury, briny flavour of clams to the soup.

The step that matters

Adding the hot mixture to the flour and butter. Pouring the hot liquid in gradually while stirring constantly keeps the flour dispersed, so the soup thickens smoothly instead of forming lumps.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, flour, pepper, clam, butter, cream):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, flour, pepper, clam, butter, cream. 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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