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Chickens and Corn Soup

A soup made from chicken broth, corn, milk, butter, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Chickens and Corn Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Remove the fat from the top of the pot liquor and save it.

  2. Heat the broth to a boil and add the corn cobs.

  3. Cook for half an hour, then strain the soup.

  4. Return the strained soup to the pot and bring it back to a boil.

Finish the soup

  1. Add the grated corn and simmer for 10 minutes.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix the butter and flour.

  3. Stir the mixture into the soup.

  4. Add the milk and season with pepper, salt, and parsley before serving.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  4. Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

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

  5. Chicken + corntop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,666 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Corn
Provides sweetness and body as the grated kernels release starch and flavor into the soup.
Butter and flour
The flour-coated butter thickens the soup as it heats, giving it a smoother body.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the flavor of the broth.
Pot liquor from cooked chickens
Forms the savory base of the soup, carrying most of the chicken flavor.

The step that matters

Stirring the butter and flour into the soup. Flour clumps if dropped in raw. Mixing it with butter first and stirring it into hot liquid helps it disperse evenly so the soup thickens smoothly without lumps.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Turmericfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, corn, milk, butter, flour, pepper. 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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