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
Prepare the corn
Cut the kernels from the corn and scrape the milk.
Make the soup
Add the corn and milk to 1 quart of water and boil for 30 to 40 minutes.
Stir in 2 quarts of milk and bring to a boil.
Mix ¼ pound of butter with 2 tablespoons of flour and add to the soup.
Season with pepper and salt.
Finish and serve
In a tureen, beat the yolks of 2 eggs and pour in the boiling soup while stirring continuously.
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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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).
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
- Sweet corn
- Provides the main flavor and body of the soup, with its starch helping to thicken it.
- Milk
- Adds richness and creaminess, forming the base liquid of the soup.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness, and with flour helps thicken the soup smoothly.
- Flour
- Thickens the soup when cooked with butter, giving it a fuller texture.
- Egg yolks
- Enriches and thickens the soup when stirred in, adding body and silkiness.
The step that matters
Adding the egg yolks to the soup. Eggs thicken when heated, but if the hot soup is poured in too fast or not stirred constantly, the yolks can scramble into lumps. Stirring continuously while pouring keeps the custard-like texture smooth.
“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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