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Soup

Huntington Soup

A tomato and corn soup made with chicken stock, onions, butter, flour, salt, and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,099 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Huntington Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Chop the corn and add it to the chicken stock, canned tomatoes, and sliced onion.

  2. Bring the mixture slowly to a boil and let it simmer for twenty minutes.

  3. Rub the mixture through a sieve.

Thicken and season

  1. In a separate pan, melt the butter and add the flour.

  2. Gradually pour in the hot mixture while stirring constantly.

  3. Season with salt and cayenne.

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. Corn + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,099 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  3. Chicken + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,031 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. Corn + chickentop 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

Butter
Enriches the thickener base and adds richness to the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup when cooked with butter and combined with the hot liquid.
Corn
Adds sweetness and body to the soup.
Canned tomatoes
Provide acidity and the main tomato flavor.
Chicken stock
Forms the liquid base of the soup.

The step that matters

Gradually pour in the hot mixture while stirring constantly. Adding hot liquid to a flour and butter roux all at once can clump the flour. Pouring slowly while stirring keeps the starch dispersed so the soup thickens smoothly.

Swap the onion

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

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

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