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Mock Crabs From Corn

A savory dish of corn and bread formed into patties and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Mock Crabs From Corn

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Combine flour, shortening, mustard, salt, and paprika in a bowl and blend the mixture.

  2. Boil after adding corn, milk, and egg.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a baking dish.

  2. Cover with cubed bread and bake until golden.

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. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  2. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Corn + mustardtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together463 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Flour + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the mixture as it cooks, giving it body and a firm set.
Egg
Binds the mixture and helps it set when baked.
Milk
Adds moisture and makes the base creamy when cooked.
Corn
Provides the main bulk, sweetness and texture of the dish.
Stale bread
Forms a golden topping that browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Boil after adding corn, milk, and egg. Flour starch only thickens fully when the liquid reaches a boil, and the egg must be stirred in steadily so it blends smoothly rather than scrambling. Stopping early leaves a thin, loose base that will not hold its shape.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, flour, milk, egg, sauce, bread):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, flour, milk, egg, sauce, bread. 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.

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