Name: Corn Soup
Ingredients: 12 ears raw green corn; 1 onion, chopped; 1 quart tomatoes; 1 gallon water; butter the size of an egg; 1 cup milk; 1 tablespoon flour; salt and pepper to taste

Why it works: Corn and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,099 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Corn Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Split the kernels from the corn and rub them off the cob with a spoon.

Make the broth

Boil the cobs in 1 gallon of water with the chopped onion and tomatoes for 2 hours.
Strain the broth and return it to the pot.

Finish and serve

Add the corn, butter, milk, and flour to the broth.
Season with salt and pepper, then 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.

Corn + tomatotop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,099 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

Raw green corn: Supplies the sweet flavor and body of the soup.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, rounding out the broth's flavor.
Milk: Adds creaminess and softens the soup's texture.
Flour: Thickens the soup slightly as it heats with the liquid.
Tomatoes: Contribute acidity and savory depth to the broth.

The step that matters

Adding the flour. Flour must be stirred into the hot liquid so it disperses evenly; added in clumps it stays lumpy and thickens unevenly.

Swap the onion

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

Capsicumfits better
Potatofits better
Asparagusfits better
Onionthe original

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