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Coen Soup

A creamy soup made from corn, water, milk, butter, onion, flour, salt, pepper, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Coen Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Cook the corn with the cold water for 20 minutes.

  2. Cook the onion in the melted butter until light brown.

Make the soup

  1. Gradually add the flour, salt, white pepper, and milk, then add the corn.

  2. Strain the mixture and reheat it.

Finish and serve

  1. Beat the egg yolks and place them in a serving bowl.

  2. Pour the soup slowly over the egg yolks, mix well, and serve in cups with a spoonful of whipped cream in each cup.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Corn + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,205 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  5. Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Corn
Provides the main flavor and body of the soup.
Flour
Thickens the milk mixture into a smooth, body-rich soup.
Egg yolks
Enrich the soup and add richness and silky texture when stirred in.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps brown the onion for flavor.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid base that the flour thickens.

The step that matters

Pour the soup slowly over the egg yolks. Adding hot soup too quickly to beaten egg yolks can scramble them. Pouring slowly while mixing gradually warms the yolks so the soup stays smooth and creamy.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, milk, butter, onion, flour, egg. 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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