Skip to main content
Main

Sweet Corn in Ramekins, Cocottes, Etc

A creamy sweet corn dish cooked with butter, flour, green pepper, garlic, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Sweet Corn in Ramekins, Cocottes, Etc

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a skillet, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the chopped green pepper and garlic or shallot; cook until softened.

  3. Stir in the flour and cook until frothy.

  4. Gradually add the cream, stirring until it reaches a boil.

  5. Mix in the salt and sweet corn, then let it sit over boiling water until hot.

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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Corn + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together712 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

Sweet corn
Provides the main bulk and sweet flavor of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and carries the flavor of the aromatics in the skillet.
Flour
Thickens the cream into a smooth, spoonable sauce.
Thick cream
Forms the creamy base that gives the filling moisture and richness.

The step that matters

Gradually add the cream while stirring. Adding cream slowly while stirring keeps the flour mixed in evenly, so the sauce thickens smoothly without lumps.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, butter, flour, pepper, cream):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, butter, flour, pepper, cream. 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.

You might also like

Corn FrittersCorn Fritters203 recipesCream of Corn SoupCream of Corn Soup50 recipesGreen Corn SoupGreen Corn Soup46 recipesCornmeal GruelCornmeal Gruel41 recipes