Name: Corn Mock Oysters
Ingredients: 1 cup corn pulp; 2 large eggs, well beaten; 1 teaspoon butter; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; ¼ teaspoon black pepper; 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour (or enough to hold it together)

Why it works: Corn and pepper 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 Mock Oysters

Ingredients

1 cup corn pulp
2 large eggs, well beaten
1 teaspoon butter
¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt
¼ teaspoon black pepper
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour (or enough to hold it together)

Directions

Prepare the corn

Cut down through the center of each row of corn kernels with a sharp knife.
Press out the pulp with the back of the knife, leaving the hull on the cob.

Make and cook the batter

In a bowl, combine the corn pulp, beaten eggs, butter, salt, pepper, and flour.
Fry the mixture on a buttered griddle like griddle cakes, or add more flour and drop spoonfuls into deep fat to make corn fritters.

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.

Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,324 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,165 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,345 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 pulp: Provides the main bulk and sweet corn flavour of the fritters.
Eggs: Bind the pulp together and set when cooked, giving the fritters structure.
All-purpose flour: Absorbs moisture and thickens the batter so it holds together when cooked.
Butter: Adds richness and helps the griddle surface brown the fritters.

The step that matters

Adding flour to hold the mixture together. Corn pulp is wet, so too little flour leaves a loose batter that falls apart or spreads in the pan. Flour absorbs that moisture and gives the mixture enough body to hold its shape when fried.

“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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Corn Mock Oysters