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Corn Soup

A soup made with beef bone, corn, tomatoes, milk, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and corn 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

Make the broth

  1. In a large pot, boil the beef bone in 2 quarts of water for a short time.

  2. Add the corn cobs and kernels along with the chopped tomatoes to the pot.

  3. Boil for about 30 minutes.

  4. Remove the corn cobs from the pot.

Finish and serve

  1. Just before serving, stir in milk and allow to boil for a few moments.

  2. Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper to taste.

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. Tomato + corntop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,099 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  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

Beef bone
Gives the soup a savory, meaty base flavor while it simmers in the water.
Corn
Provides the main sweetness and body, with the cobs adding flavor to the broth.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and fresh flavor that brightens the broth.
Milk
Adds richness and creaminess to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Adding the milk. Once milk is added it can curdle or scorch if it boils hard for too long, so it should go in just before serving and only boil briefly.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Tomatothe original
  4. Carrotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, corn, 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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