Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓
Corn Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Make the soup base
Boil the cobs from which the corn has been removed in the water or stock for 30 minutes.
Remove the cobs and add the corn, boiling until very soft.
Press the mixture through a sieve.
Season and let it simmer while rubbing the butter and flour together.
Thicken and finish
Add the butter and flour mixture to the soup, stirring until it thickens.
Add the boiling milk and cook for 1 minute.
Stir in the beaten egg yolks and serve immediately.
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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Corn + milktop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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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).
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
- Corn
- Provides the main body and sweet corn flavour of the soup.
- Butter and flour
- Form a roux that thickens the soup into a smooth, creamy texture.
- Milk
- Adds richness and softness to the soup's texture and flavour.
- Egg yolks
- Enrich the soup and add body when stirred in at the end.
The step that matters
Stir in the beaten egg yolks and serve immediately. Egg yolks thicken when heated but can curdle or scramble if the soup is too hot or boils after they are added. Keeping the soup below boiling when they go in gives a smooth, silky result.
“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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