Name: Chicken and Corn Soup
Ingredients: 1 pint tender green corn; 1 quart chicken broth; 1 cup cream or milk; 2 tablespoons butter; ¼ teaspoon salt; ¼ teaspoon pepper

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Chicken and Corn Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Add the corn to the chicken broth.
Boil for twenty minutes.
Stir in the cream or milk, butter, salt, and pepper.

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.

Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,324 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Corn + chickentop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,666 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,345 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,902 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Tender green corn: Provides the main flavor, natural sweetness, and body of the soup.
Chicken broth: Forms the liquid base that carries the flavor of the soup.
Cream or milk: Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture.
Butter: Adds fat for a rich mouthfeel and a rounder flavor.

“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.