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Cream of Corn Soup

A creamy soup made from corn, milk, onion, and butter, thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Cream of Corn Soup

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 ↓

Cream of Corn Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the corn base

  1. Chop the can of corn.

  2. Add the chopped corn to boiling water.

  3. Simmer for 20 minutes.

  4. Rub the mixture through a sieve.

Finish the soup

  1. Scald the milk with the onion slice.

  2. Remove the onion slice.

  3. Add the milk to the corn mixture.

  4. Thicken with flour and butter mixed to a paste.

  5. Season with 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

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

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

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

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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
Provides the main flavour and, once sieved, the body of the soup.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softness to the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup as it is cooked with the butter.
Butter
Enriches the flavour and helps form the flour paste that thickens the soup.

The step that matters

Thicken with flour and butter mixed to a paste. Flour must be fully blended into the butter and then into the hot liquid, and cooked through, or it will form lumps and taste raw. Mixing it to a smooth paste first lets it disperse evenly and thicken the soup smoothly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

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