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
The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Prepare the corn
Chop the corn finely and cook it with the cold water for 20 minutes.
Mash the cooked corn through a coarse sieve and blend it into the soup.
Make the soup
In a double boiler, heat the milk with the onion, then remove the onion.
Make a white sauce by melting the butter, adding the flour, and using 1 cup of the hot milk as liquid.
Boil the white sauce for 10 minutes, then add it to the milk.
Mash the cooked corn through a coarse sieve and blend it into the soup.
Serve hot.
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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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Corn + oniontop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,205 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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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
- Corn pulp
- Provides the main body and sweet corn flavour of the soup.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the soup and gives it a creamy richness.
- Butter
- Enriches the white sauce and adds fat for a smoother mouthfeel.
- Flour
- Thickens the butter and milk into a white sauce that gives the soup body.
The step that matters
Making the white sauce. Flour must cook in melted butter long enough to lose its raw taste and to thicken evenly. Adding it to the milk without this cooking, or letting lumps form, leaves the soup pasty or floury.
Swap the white pepper
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, milk, butter, flour, onion):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Jalapenofits better
- Nutmegfits better
- White pepperthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against corn, milk, butter, flour, onion. 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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