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
Make the corn stock
Cut the corn from the ears.
Place the cobs in 1 quart of cold water and bring to a boil.
Boil the cobs hard for 20 minutes, then remove them.
Finish the soup
Add the corn to the water and cook until tender.
Stir in salt, pepper, and butter.
Add the milk or milk and cream, and stir on low heat for 5 minutes.
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.
-
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
-
Corn + milktop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
-
Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,324 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
-
Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,345 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
-
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Corn
- Provides the main sweet flavor and tender body of the soup.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the soup.
- Milk
- Adds creaminess and mild sweetness, softening the soup's texture.
The step that matters
Boil the cobs hard for 20 minutes. Boiling the cobs extracts their starch and sugars into the water, building the flavor of the broth. Too short a boil yields a thin, bland base, so the full time matters.
“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.
More corn soup recipes
You might also like
Corn Fritters203 recipes
Cornmeal Gruel41 recipes
Cornmeal Pudding32 recipes
Hulled Corn23 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.