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Stewed Corn

A simple stew of corn simmered in its own liquid, finished with milk, butter, flour, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Stewed Corn

Ingredients

Directions

Stew the corn

  1. Stew the corn in its own liquid by placing the vessel in hot water.

  2. If the corn is very dry, add a little cold water.

  3. When tender, pour in enough milk to cover the corn and bring to a boil.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the butter rolled in flour and salt to taste.

  2. Stew gently for three to four minutes, stirring well.

  3. Transfer to a deep dish and keep covered while cooking to preserve color.

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

Corn
Forms the main body of the dish and provides its sweet, tender texture.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess as it covers and cooks the corn.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the stewed corn a smoother mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the liquid as it cooks with the butter, helping the stew become creamy.

The step that matters

Stirring in the butter and flour mixture. Flour clumps if dropped in raw or left unstirred, while stirring disperses the starch so it thickens the milk evenly instead of forming lumps.

“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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