Name: Green Corn Soup
Ingredients: 1 knuckle of veal; 3 quarts of water; 3 teaspoons of coarse sea salt; 12 ears of corn; 1 ounce of butter; flour

Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Green Corn Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the knuckle of veal in 3 quarts of water with 3 teaspoons of coarse sea salt.
Cut the corn off the ears and add it to the pot.
Cook until the veal is tender.
Roll the butter in flour.
Add the flour-butter mixture to the soup before serving.
If the water has boiled away too much, add a little more.

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.

Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,165 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,345 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Veal + corntop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together247 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Veal + buttertop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,381 recipes

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

Butter and flour 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

Veal knuckle: Gives the broth its meaty body and rich flavour as it simmers.
Corn: Adds sweetness and fresh corn flavour to the soup.
Butter: Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Flour: Combined with butter, it thickens the soup slightly when stirred in.

“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.