Why it works: Butter and milk 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
Cook the chicken
Boil the chicken in 2 quarts of water until half cooked.
Remove the chicken.
Stuff the chicken.
Roast the chicken.
Make the soup
Cut the corn from the cob.
Add the corn to the boiling water.
Add the butter thickened with a little flour about 45 minutes before serving.
Finish and serve
Just before serving, add the milk, pepper, and salt.
Bring the soup to a boil.
Serve immediately.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Corn + milktop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,324 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Chicken + corntop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,666 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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
- Corn
- Provides the main body, natural sweetness and starchy texture to the soup.
- Chicken
- Gives the broth its base flavour as it cooks in the water.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and smoothing the soup's mouthfeel.
- Milk
- Adds creaminess and a mild sweetness, softening the soup's overall flavour.
- Flour
- Thickens the soup as it heats, giving it a fuller, velvety consistency.
The step that matters
Add the butter thickened with flour about 45 minutes before serving. Flour must simmer in the hot liquid long enough to swell and thicken, and to cook out its raw, pasty taste. Adding it too late leaves the soup thin or floury-tasting.
“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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