Name: Corn and Tomato Soup
Ingredients: 1 quart green corn, cut off the cob; 1 quart tomatoes, chopped small; 1 pint mixed vegetables, cut small; 5 quarts seasoned soup stock

Why it works: Corn and tomato 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 and Tomato Soup

Ingredients

1 quart green corn, cut off the cob
1 quart tomatoes, chopped small
1 pint mixed vegetables, cut small
5 quarts seasoned soup stock

Directions

Combine corn, tomatoes, and mixed vegetables in a large pot.
Add the seasoned soup stock and bring to a boil.
Season to taste and serve hot.

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.

Corn + tomatotop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,099 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Green corn: Adds sweetness and body as the main vegetable base of the soup.
Tomatoes: Provides acidity and moisture, giving the soup its fresh, tangy flavor.
Mixed vegetables: Adds bulk, texture and additional flavor to the broth.
Seasoned soup stock: Forms the liquid base that carries and blends the flavors of the vegetables.

“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.