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Samp, or Hulled Corn

Samp is a dish made by soaking, boiling, and washing hulled corn, served with milk or cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Samp, or Hulled Corn

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the corn in a pot filled with water and the hardwood ashes.

  2. Boil until the skins come off easily.

  3. Wash the corn in cold water to remove the taste of potash.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil again until the kernels are soft.

  2. Serve with milk or cream.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

  1. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Dry ripe corn
Forms the main body of the dish; its starch softens into a tender, hearty texture when boiled.
Hardwood ashes
Alkaline ash loosens the corn's hulls so the skins slip off easily during boiling.

The step that matters

Washing after the first boil. Rinsing in cold water removes the lye-like taste left by the ashes. Skipping or shortening this rinse leaves the dish harsh and bitter.

“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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