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Corn Soup

A creamy corn soup made with fresh corn, water, flour, butter, cream, milk, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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

  1. Grate the corn from the cob, scraping with a sharp knife to obtain all the milk.

  2. In a granite pot, combine the corn and hot water, and boil for one hour.

Thicken and finish

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour and butter until smooth to create a thickening.

  2. Slowly add the corn pulp to the thickening, mixing well.

  3. Stir in the cream and boiling milk until fully incorporated.

  4. Season with paprika or cayenne, nutmeg, coarse sea salt, and celery salt if desired.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Nutmeg + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,331 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Corn + celerytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together920 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh corn
Provides the main body, natural sweetness and corn flavour of the soup.
Flour
Starch that thickens the soup as it is heated in the liquid.
Butter
Fat that carries flavour and helps the flour blend into a smooth paste.
Rich cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Milk
Adds creaminess and body, softening the soup's richness.

The step that matters

Adding the corn pulp to the thickening. Flour must be fully dispersed in fat before liquid is added. Adding the corn pulp slowly while mixing well keeps the starch from clumping into lumps, so the soup thickens evenly.

Swap the celery

The recipe marks celery as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, flour, egg, butter, cream, milk, nutmeg):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, flour, egg, butter, cream, milk, nutmeg. 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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Green 46Chicken 11Sweet 4Cream 3Creamed 3Creole 3 See all 204 →

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