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Corn Soup

A hearty soup made with stewed corn, potatoes, carrot, tomatoes, onions, butter, milk, celery salt, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Corn Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cook the corn, potatoes, carrot, tomatoes, and onions in water for 2.5 hours.

  2. Add the milk, butter, and celery salt.

  3. Boil for 15 minutes and 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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Potato + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Corn + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together938 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Stewed corn
Forms the body of the soup and gives it its sweet, starchy base.
Potatoes
Break down during long cooking to thicken the soup and add body.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the flavour of the vegetables.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and brightness that balance the sweetness of the corn.

The step that matters

Boil for 15 minutes after adding the milk. Milk can curdle or scorch if it boils too hard or sits on the heat too long. Keep the soup at a gentle simmer and stir so the milk stays smooth and the bottom does not burn.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, potato, carrot, tomato, butter, milk, celery):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Parsnipfits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, potato, carrot, tomato, butter, milk, celery. 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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