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
Prepare the corn
Cook the corn in hot water for 30 minutes.
Pour the cooked corn into a bowl.
Make the soup
In a pot, bring the milk to a boil.
Mix the flour and butter together.
Add a few tablespoons of the boiling milk to the flour and butter mixture until smooth.
Stir the flour mixture into the boiling milk.
Cook for 8 minutes.
Add the corn and cayenne pepper.
Bring to a boil.
Remove from heat.
Add salt.
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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Milk + buttertop 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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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,165 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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
- Grated green corn
- Provides the main body and sweet corn flavor of the soup.
- Milk
- Forms the creamy base of the soup and adds richness.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness, and combines with flour to thicken the soup.
- Flour
- Thickens the soup when cooked with butter and milk.
The step that matters
Stirring the flour mixture into the boiling milk. If the flour and butter paste is added without first being smoothed with hot milk, it can form lumps that do not dissolve. Adding a little hot milk first to make a smooth paste lets the starch disperse evenly before it thickens the soup.
“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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