Why it works: Butter and cream 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 ↓
Corn Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Make the corn base
Combine corn and water in a pot.
Simmer for 30 minutes.
Strain the mixture.
Thicken and finish
Melt butter in the pot and whisk in flour.
Cook for 1 minute.
Add the strained corn mixture, salt, and pepper.
Boil for 5 minutes.
Stir in cream and heat until just boiling.
Serve hot.
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 + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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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).
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Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,165 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,345 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
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
- Provides the main flavor and body of the soup.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat that carries flavor into the soup.
- Flour
- Cooked in butter, it thickens the soup by swelling in liquid.
- Cream
- Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture.
The step that matters
Cooking the flour in butter. Cooking the flour briefly in melted butter removes its raw taste and lets it thicken evenly. Adding the flour without whisking can leave lumps, and the cook needs to whisk while it cooks.
“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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