Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓
Corn Peittees
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the corn
Cut the grains from the corn and place them in a saucepan.
Moisten the corn with a little cream and season with salt, pepper, and sugar.
Simmer until the moisture is reduced, then remove from heat and let cool.
Make the batter
In a bowl, make a batter with flour, milk, and eggs until not too thin.
Mix the batter with the cooled corn thoroughly.
Fry and serve
Heat hot lard in a frying pan.
Fill a soup spoon with the corn batter and drop it into the lard, frying a few at a time.
Fry until nicely browned on both sides, then drain on a napkin.
Serve garnished with fried parsley.
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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together34,122 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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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).
-
Corn + parsleytop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together943 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Corn
- Provides the main body and sweet flavour of the fritters.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and help it set and hold its shape when fried.
- Flour
- Thickens the batter so the corn stays held together during frying.
- Cream
- Adds richness and moisture to the corn before it is cooked down.
- Lard
- Conducts heat for frying and gives the fritters a golden, browned crust.
The step that matters
Frying the batter in hot lard. If the lard is not hot enough, the batter absorbs fat and turns greasy instead of forming a crisp, browned crust. Frying only a few at a time keeps the lard hot so each fritter cooks evenly.
Swap the parsley
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, cream, pepper, sugar, flour, milk, egg):
- Nutmegfits better
- Cinnamonfits better
- Cardamomfits better
- Parsleythe original
Fit is the average pairing score against corn, cream, pepper, sugar, flour, milk, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“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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