Why it works: Pepper and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,324 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Corn Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Make the broth
Combine the boiled ham, veal, calf's feet, and pepper in a soup pot.
Add water, using 1 quart for each pound of meat, and bring to a boil.
Cook until the meat is ready to fall from the bone.
Boil the cut pieces of fowl with the veal and calf's feet.
Strain the liquid into a clean pot.
If you have plenty of milk, use it instead of water.
Prepare the corn
Once the soup is well boiled and strained, cook the sweet corn in another pot.
Cut the grains from the cob.
Mix the grains with fresh butter and pepper.
Finish and serve
Stir the corn mixture into the strained soup.
Boil a little longer 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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Pepper + corntop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,324 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Ham + meattop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,095 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,345 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
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Ham + vealtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,264 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,475 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Bits of boiled ham
- Adds savory, meaty flavor to the broth.
- 1 knuckle of veal
- Adds body and rich flavor to the broth as it cooks.
- 1 set of calf's feet
- Releases gelatin into the broth, giving it body and a silky texture.
- Young and tender ears of sweet corn
- Provides the sweet corn grains that give the soup its main flavor and texture.
- Fresh butter
- Adds richness and fat, rounding out the corn's sweetness.
The step that matters
Boil the meat until it is ready to fall from the bone. Long, gentle simmering breaks down collagen in the veal and calf's feet into gelatin, which gives the broth body. Stopping early leaves a thin, weak soup.
“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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