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Coen and Chicken Soup

A soup made with corn, chicken stock, milk, butter, flour, onion, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Coen and Chicken Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the corn stock

  1. Chop the corn and add it to the chicken stock.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil and simmer for 15 minutes.

  3. Strain the soup through a sieve.

Scald the milk

  1. Scald the milk with the onion.

  2. Remove the onion.

Thicken and season

  1. Add the milk to the corn mixture.

  2. Melt the butter in a pan.

  3. Add the flour to the melted butter.

  4. Gradually pour the hot corn mixture into the pan while stirring constantly.

  5. Add the salt and pepper.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Corn
Adds sweetness and body to the soup as it cooks down.
Chicken stock
Provides the savory liquid base that carries the other ingredients.
Butter
Fat that forms the roux and adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
Flour
Starch that thickens the soup once cooked with the butter and liquid.
Milk
Adds creaminess and a softer, rounder body to the soup.

The step that matters

Adding the hot corn mixture to the roux. Flour must be fully coated in melted butter before liquid goes in. Pouring the hot mixture gradually while stirring keeps starch granules dispersed, so they hydrate evenly and the soup thickens without lumps.

Swap the onion

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

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

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