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
Place the corn in a pot and cover with water.
Add the hardwood ashes and soak for a while.
Hull and rinse
Boil the corn until the hulls come off easily.
Wash the corn in cold water to remove the taste of potash.
Cook and serve
Boil the corn again until the kernels are soft.
Serve with milk or cream.
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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Corn + milktop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Corn
- Its starchy kernels soften on boiling into the tender grains that make up the dish.
- Hardwood ashes
- Their alkaline content loosens the hulls so they come off easily and helps soften the kernels.
The step that matters
Wash the corn in cold water after the ash soak. Ash leaves alkaline potash on the kernels. Rinsing it off thoroughly prevents a bitter, soapy taste in the finished corn.
“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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