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Cream Corn Soup

A creamy soup made with corn, onion, milk, butter, flour, and beef stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cream Corn Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the corn base

  1. In a pot, combine the corn, chopped onion, and sweet milk.

  2. Boil slowly for 2 hours or more.

  3. Mash the mixture and strain it.

Make the soup and serve

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter. Add the flour and stir until smooth.

  2. Gradually add the beef stock.

  3. Bring to a boil for 20 minutes.

  4. Add the mashed and strained corn to the saucepan.

  5. Serve hot with a teaspoon of whipped cream on each plate.

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. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  5. Corn + beeftop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,028 recipes

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

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 flavor of the soup.
Sweet milk
Adds richness and creaminess, and softens the texture as it simmers.
Flour
Thickens the butter-and-stock base so the soup turns silky rather than watery.
Butter
Carries flavor and adds richness to the roux base.
Beef stock
Adds savory depth to the soup.

The step that matters

Adding the stock to the flour and butter. Adding liquid gradually while stirring keeps the flour dispersed, which prevents lumps and gives a smooth, evenly thickened soup.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, milk, flour, butter, beef, 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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