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Cream of Corn Soup

A creamy soup made from processed corn, milk, butter, flour, and egg yolks, seasoned with pepper and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Cream of Corn Soup

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 ↓

Cream of Corn Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the corn base

  1. In a pot, combine the processed corn and water, then simmer for 5 minutes.

  2. Add 3 cups of milk to the corn mixture.

Make the thickened milk

  1. In a separate saucepan, melt 2 tablespoons of butter. Stir in 2 tablespoons of flour and ¼ teaspoon of pepper.

  2. Add 1 tablespoon of minced onion and the minced yolks of 2 hard-boiled eggs to the butter mixture.

  3. Pour in 1 cup of milk and cook until bubbling.

Combine and serve

  1. Mix the bubbling mixture with the corn and milk, then simmer briefly.

  2. Strain the soup, season with coarse sea salt to taste, and serve very hot.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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
Forms the main body and sweet flavour of the soup.
Butter
Carries flavour and enriches the texture of the roux.
Flour
Thickens the milk and gives the soup a smooth, creamy body.
Milk
Provides the creamy liquid base and adds richness.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add richness and body to the thickened mixture.

The step that matters

Cooking the butter and flour until bubbling. Flour must be cooked in fat and then combined with liquid while bubbling so it thickens smoothly without lumps. Stirring in the milk while the roux is still hot and moving helps it disperse evenly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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