Skip to main content
Soup

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
Jump to recipe ↓

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 the corn, water, and onion slices in a pot.

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

  3. Cream together the butter and flour in a separate bowl.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir the butter‑flour mixture into the boiling milk along with salt, pepper, celery salt (if using), and sugar.

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

  3. Cook for a few minutes, 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.

  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
Forms the body of the soup and, once mashed, thickens it with starch and texture.
Butter and flour
Creamed together to form a roux that thickens the milk into a smooth, body-rich soup.
Milk
Provides the creamy liquid base that the thickened corn is stirred into.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and flavor to the broth as the corn simmers.

The step that matters

Stir the butter‑flour mixture into the boiling milk. Adding the flour mixture to boiling liquid without first blending it well can leave lumps, because flour clumps when it hits hot liquid unevenly. Stirring steadily while adding it helps the starch disperse and thicken smoothly.

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.

You might also like

Cream of CeleryCream of Celery37 recipesIndian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and SpinachIndian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and Spinach448 recipesClear Carrot and Bottle Gourd SoupClear Carrot and Bottle Gourd Soup65 recipesMock Bisque SoupMock Bisque Soup51 recipes