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Dried Corn

A method for drying corn by boiling, forming dumplings, and oven or sun drying.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Dried Corn

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the corn

  1. Wash the corn.

  2. Soak the corn overnight in clean cold water. If short on time, soak in hot water for 2-3 hours.

  3. Cook the soaked corn in the soaking water for 5-10 minutes.

  4. Add butter, flour, salt, and pepper once the mixture is boiling.

Make and cook the dumplings

  1. For dumplings, mix egg yolk, milk, salt, and enough flour to thicken.

  2. Drop small dumplings into the boiling corn and cover tightly.

  3. Cook for 5-10 minutes without lifting the lid.

Dry and store

  1. To dry corn, shave it off the cob into a pan, then spread it on a lined dripping pan.

  2. Heat in a moderate oven (350°F/175°C) for 15-20 minutes, stirring frequently.

  3. Spread the corn on a table in the sun, cover with a cloth, and bring it in before sunset.

  4. Repeat heating in the oven and sun exposure until thoroughly dried, about two days.

  5. Store in a paper bag in a cool, dry, dark place.

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. Butter + milktop 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. 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 + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 is the material that is dried.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the cooked corn a softer, rounder texture.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid and helps the dumplings hold their shape.
Egg yolk
Binds the dumpling dough and adds richness and structure as it sets.

The step that matters

Cover tightly and do not lift the lid while the dumplings cook. Lifting the lid releases steam and drops the temperature, so the dumplings may cook unevenly or turn gummy instead of setting through in the trapped steam.

“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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