Name: Stir-fried Corn with Cumin and Coriander
Ingredients: 1 cup frozen or canned whole kernel corn; 1 teaspoon ground cumin; 1 teaspoon ground coriander; 1 clove garlic, minced; 1/2 teaspoon salt; 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper; 1 medium onion, finely chopped; 3 tablespoons butter; 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice; Chopped cilantro for garnish (optional)

Why it works: Cumin and coriander match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,866 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

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.

Cumin + coriandertop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,866 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together29,058 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Cumin + garlictop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,082 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Coriander + garlictop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,474 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Cumin + clovetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,306 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Corn: Provides the main bulk, natural sweetness and tender texture of the dish.
Butter: Adds fat for frying, carrying flavour and helping the onion mixture brown lightly.
Onion: Softens and sweetens as it cooks, forming the flavour base of the paste.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the spiced, buttery flavours at the end.

The step that matters

Stir-frying the onion mixture for 5 minutes. Cooking the paste long enough softens the raw onion and blooms the ground spices in fat, removing raw bite. Too little time leaves the onion harsh and the spices dull.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, cumin, coriander, garlic, pepper, onion, butter):

Turmericfits better
Oreganofits better
Parsleyfits better
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, cumin, coriander, garlic, pepper, onion, butter. 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.

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Butter	1 tbsp (14g)	102
Corn	1/2 cup kernels (82g)	77
Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Lemon	juice of 1 lemon (48ml)	12
Cumin	1 tsp ground (2.1g)	8
Chili	1 tsp (2.7g)	8
Garlic	1 clove (3g)	4
Cilantro	1 tbsp chopped fresh (1g)	1
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0
Coriander	not in our table	0

Stir-fried Corn with Cumin and Coriander