Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Corn Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare and cook
Add three pints of water to each quart of young corn cut from the cob.
Boil until the grains are tender.
Mix two ounces of sweet butter with one tablespoonful of flour until smooth.
Stir the butter mixture into the soup and let it boil ten or fifteen minutes longer.
Finish
Just before removing from the pot, beat up an egg and stir it in with pepper and salt to taste.
Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)
Counts 4 of 5 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.
What these numbers assume: 4 portions
| Ingredient | Portion assumed | kcal |
|---|---|---|
| Flour | 1 cup (125g) all-purpose | 455 |
| Butter | 1 tbsp (14g) | 102 |
| Black Pepper | 1 tsp ground (2.3g) | 6 |
| Salt | 1 tsp (6g) | 0 |
| Water | not in our table | 0 |
One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.
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. See the original page.
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.
-
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together50,459 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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 (in the method)
- Provides the main body and sweet, fresh corn flavor of the soup.
- Sweet butter
- Adds fat for richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
- Flour
- Thickens the soup by swelling its starch in the hot liquid, giving body.
- Egg (in the method)
- Enriches the soup and adds slight thickening as it sets in the hot broth.
The step that matters
Stirring in the beaten egg. Egg proteins set when they meet hot liquid, so they can curdle into strands if added too fast or left to boil hard. Stirring the beaten egg in just before removing the pot keeps the soup smooth and evenly enriched.
“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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