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Cream of Corn Soup

A creamy soup made with corn, milk, butter, flour, onion, celery leaves, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Cream of Corn Soup

Why it works: Pepper and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cream of Corn Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Brown the onion and celery leaves in melted butter.

  2. Add flour and mix until smooth.

  3. Slowly add scalded milk while stirring constantly.

  4. Add boiling water and cook over hot water until thick and smooth.

Finish the soup

  1. Stir in the corn and season with salt and pepper to taste.

  2. Heat thoroughly before serving.

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. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Corn + celerytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together920 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  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

Butter
Carries the onion and celery flavor and enriches the soup with fat.
Flour
Thickens the milk and water into a smooth, body-rich soup as it cooks.
Milk
Forms the creamy base that thickens with flour and gives the soup its richness.
Corn
Provides the main sweet flavor and body of the soup.

The step that matters

Adding the scalded milk slowly while stirring constantly. Flour clumps when liquid is added too fast or unevenly. Gradual addition with constant stirring keeps the starch dispersed so the soup cooks smooth rather than lumpy.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, milk, butter, pepper, flour, 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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