Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Corn Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Make the corn stock
Boil the corn in hot water for at least 1 hour until the flavor is extracted.
Strain the mixture, discarding the corn and keeping the liquid.
Make the soup
In a saucepan, melt the butter until bubbling.
Sprinkle in the flour and cook for 1 minute, stirring well.
Gradually add half of the corn juice, mixing until smooth.
Stir in the remaining corn juice, cayenne pepper, salt, and boiling milk.
Finally, add the cream or milk and mix well.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Corn + milktop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,324 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Corn
- Gives the soup its main flavor, which is drawn out into the hot water.
- Butter
- Forms the fat base for the roux and adds richness.
- Flour
- Thickens the soup when cooked briefly with butter into a roux.
- Cream or milk
- Adds richness and body, making the soup smoother and creamier.
The step that matters
Cooking the flour in the butter. Cooking the flour for a full minute with the butter, while stirring, removes its raw taste and lets it thicken the liquid evenly. Adding liquid too early or without stirring can leave lumps.
“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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