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Green Corn Griddle Cakes

A griddle cake made with grated corn, egg, milk, butter, flour, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Green Corn Griddle Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Grate the corn from the cob.

  2. In a bowl, beat the egg and add the milk or cream.

  3. Mix in the grated corn and salt to taste.

  4. Stir in the melted butter and enough flour to hold the mixture together.

Cook

  1. Heat lard or butter in a skillet or on a griddle.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto the hot surface and cook until golden brown on both sides.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Grated corn
Provides the main body and sweet corn flavour of the cakes.
Egg
Binds the mixture and helps the cakes hold together while cooking.
Flour
Absorbs moisture and gives the batter enough structure to hold its shape.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richer flavour and helps the cakes brown.

The step that matters

Drop spoonfuls onto the hot surface. If the lard or butter is not hot enough, the cakes absorb fat and turn greasy rather than browning. Starting with a properly heated surface gives a crisp golden exterior and keeps the centre tender.

“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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