Why it works: Milk and butter 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
Prepare the corn
Remove the kernels from the corn cobs using a sharp knife to yield about 1½ pints of corn.
In a double boiler, cook the corn with 1 pint of water for 30 minutes or longer if the corn is old.
Make the soup
Combine the cream and milk.
Thicken the mixture with the flour.
Strain the corn.
Add the strained corn to the cream mixture.
Season with butter, salt, and pepper before serving.
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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Milk + buttertop 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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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter 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
- Fresh corn
- Provides the main sweet flavor and body of the soup.
- Cream and milk
- Add richness, creaminess, and a smooth texture to the soup.
- Flour
- Thickens the cream mixture so the soup becomes velvety.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richer flavor and a silky mouthfeel.
The step that matters
Thicken the mixture with the flour. Flour must be cooked into the liquid to avoid a raw, pasty taste and lumps. Stirring as it heats lets starch granules swell evenly and thicken the soup smoothly.
“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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