Name: Sweet Green Corn
Ingredients: fresh sweet corn; butter; coarse sea salt; cream

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Sweet Green Corn

Ingredients

fresh sweet corn
butter
coarse sea salt
cream

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 145°F (63°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Shave the tips from the corn grains with a sharp knife.
Split the grains row by row and scrape the remaining pulp from the cob with a dull knife.
Add butter, a little coarse sea salt, or cream.
Heat to 145°F (63°C) and serve.

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.

Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,345 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Corn + creamtop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,532 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).