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Corn Soup

A creamy soup made from canned green corn, water, milk, flour, butter, egg, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Corn Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Combine the can of green corn and hot water in a pot and cook gently for 30 minutes.

  2. Once the corn is tender, add the milk and season with salt and white pepper.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil.

Thicken and finish

  1. In a separate bowl, mix the flour with a little cold water to create a paste.

  2. Stir the paste into the soup along with the butter.

  3. Remove the soup from heat.

  4. Quickly stir in the beaten egg to prevent curdling.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

Green corn
Provides the main flavor and body of the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup by swelling in liquid as it heats.
Milk
Adds creaminess and a mild sweetness to the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, rounding out the flavor and mouthfeel.
Egg
Enriches the soup and adds body as it sets slightly in the hot liquid.

The step that matters

Stir in the beaten egg off the heat. Egg proteins set and curdle when overheated, so removing the soup from heat before stirring in the egg keeps it smooth and silky rather than grainy.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Jalapenofits better
  4. White pepperthe original

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