Why it works: Corn and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,324 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Corn Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Make the soup
Boil 3 pints of water in a pot.
Add 1 quart of young corn and cook until tender.
Mix 2 ounces of butter with 1 tablespoon of flour and add to the pot.
Boil for an additional 15 minutes.
Finish and serve
Just before serving, stir in 1 well beaten egg.
Season with salt and pepper to taste.
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.
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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).
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Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,345 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 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
- Young corn
- Provides the main body and sweet flavor of the soup.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the broth.
- Flour
- Thickens the broth slightly when cooked with the butter.
- Egg
- Stirred in at the end to add body and richness to the soup.
The step that matters
Stirring in the egg just before serving. Egg proteins set when heated, so adding the beaten egg to a boiling soup can cause it to curdle into strings. Stirring it in off the heat, just before serving, keeps it smooth and evenly distributed.
“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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