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Corn Soup

A creamy soup made from corn, milk, butter, and optional egg yolks and ketchup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 the corn

  1. If using fresh corn, cut it from the cob and scrape off the sweet part.

  2. Combine the corn with hot water in a pot and boil for at least 1 hour.

  3. Press the mixture through a colander to extract the pulp.

Make the soup

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter until bubbling, then add the flour and cook for 1 minute while stirring.

  2. Stir in half of the corn pulp until smooth, then add the remaining pulp.

  3. Mix in Cayenne pepper, salt, boiling milk, and cream.

  4. If desired, mix the egg yolks with a little milk or cream and stir in just before serving without boiling.

  5. Optionally, add tomato ketchup for extra flavor.

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. Corn + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  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
Forms the body and sweet flavor of the soup once pressed into pulp.
Butter
Carries flavor and enriches the base before the flour is added.
Flour
Cooked briefly in butter to form a roux that thickens the soup.
Milk
Adds liquid and creaminess, giving the soup a softer, richer texture.
Cream
Adds fat for a smooth, rich mouthfeel and a silkier texture.
Egg yolks
Add richness and further thicken the soup when stirred in without boiling.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks without boiling. Egg yolks can curdle and turn grainy when overheated. Stirring them in off the heat, just before serving, lets them thicken gently and keeps the soup smooth.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, butter, flour, pepper, milk, cream, 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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