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Soup

Chicken and Corn Soup

A soup made from chicken broth, grated corn, butter, flour, parsley, celery essence, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Chicken and Corn Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Skim the broth from the boiled chickens and place it over the fire.

  2. Add the grated corn and boil for one hour.

  3. Strain the mixture through a colander.

  4. Season and heat, then stir in the butter rolled in flour, parsley, and celery essence.

  5. Simmer for five minutes, then add the boiling milk and serve.

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. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  5. Chicken + corntop 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

Grated corn
Provides the main body and sweet corn flavour of the soup as it boils.
Butter rolled in flour
The flour thickens the soup and the butter adds richness and smooth mouthfeel.
Boiling milk
Adds creaminess and softens the soup's flavour when stirred in at the end.
Liquor from boiled chickens
Forms the savoury chicken base that carries the other flavours.

The step that matters

Stir in the butter rolled in flour. Flour clumps if added raw to hot liquid. Rolling it in butter first and stirring it in gradually helps it disperse so the soup thickens smoothly instead of lumpily.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Turmericfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

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