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Soup

Corn and Tomato Soup

A soup made with sweet corn, tomatoes, onion, carrot, green pepper, butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Corn and Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Grate the corn from the ears.

  2. Put the cobs in a pot with water and cook for about 30 minutes to extract sweetness. Remove the cobs from the pot.

Cook the soup

  1. Add the tomatoes, onion, carrot, green pepper, and grated corn to the pot. Cook slowly until all ingredients are tender.

  2. Stir in the butter. Season with salt and pepper.

Serve

  1. Pour into a tureen 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. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Corn + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together794 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 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

Sweet corn
Provides the main sweetness and body of the soup, with cobs adding flavour to the water.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and a fresh, tangy flavour that balances the sweet corn.
Butter
Adds richness and a rounded mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Onion
Builds savoury depth as it softens into the soup base.

The step that matters

Cook slowly until all ingredients are tender. Gentle heat lets the vegetables soften fully and release their flavour without scorching or turning the soup bitter. Rushing this leaves firm, raw-tasting pieces and a thin, less developed flavour.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, tomato, carrot, pepper, butter. 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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