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Soup

Green Corn Soup

A soup made from fresh corn, onion, butter, milk, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Green Corn Soup

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 ↓

Green Corn Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the base

  1. Remove kernels from fresh corn and set aside.

  2. Chop onion and sauté in butter until soft.

  3. Add corn kernels and cook for a few minutes.

  4. Pour in milk and bring to a simmer.

Finish and serve

  1. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

  2. Blend until smooth if desired, then serve hot.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Butter + milktop 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. Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Corn + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,205 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

Fresh corn
Provides the main sweet flavor and starchy body that thickens the soup.
Onion
Forms the aromatic base, turning sweet and mellow as it softens in fat.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor from the onion into the soup.
Milk
Supplies the liquid and creamy texture that makes the soup smooth and rounded.

The step that matters

Pour in milk and bring to a simmer. Milk contains sugars and proteins that can scorch or stick to the base of the pan if the heat is too high. Keep the heat moderate, stir, and stop as soon as the soup simmers to avoid a burnt taste and a boil-over.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

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

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