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Corn and Onion Soup

A soup made with corn, onion, water, milk, butter, flour, salt, pepper, celery salt, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Corn and Onion Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Combine corn, water, and onion slices in a pot.

  2. Bring to a boil until the corn can be easily passed through a colander.

Make the soup

  1. Cream butter and flour together in a separate bowl.

  2. Stir this mixture into the boiling milk along with salt, pepper, celery salt (if using), and sugar.

  3. Mash the corn through the colander and add it to the milk mixture.

  4. Cook everything together for a few minutes.

  5. 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. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

What each ingredient does

Corn
Provides the main body and sweetness, and thickens the soup when mashed through a colander.
Flour
Thickens the soup by swelling in the hot liquid once blended with butter.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded flavor to the soup.
Milk
Forms the creamy base of the soup and adds body and mild sweetness.

The step that matters

Stirring the butter-flour mixture into the boiling milk. Flour thickens only when its starch swells in hot liquid. Adding the paste to milk that is still boiling and stirring steadily helps it disperse evenly, which prevents lumps.

Swap the celery

The recipe marks celery as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, onion, milk, butter, flour, pepper, sugar):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Celerythe original

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