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Green Corn Fritters

A fried corn fritter made with grated corn, eggs, flour, salt, pepper, and lard or butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Corn and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,324 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Green Corn Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Grate the corn from the ears.

  2. Beat the egg whites and yolks separately in a bowl.

Make the batter

  1. Combine the grated corn, beaten eggs, flour, salt, and pepper.

Fry

  1. Heat the lard or butter in a pan.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into the hot fat and fry until golden brown.

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 + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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
Provides the bulk and moisture of the fritter, with natural sweetness as it cooks.
Eggs
Bind the grated corn together and set as the fritters cook, giving structure.
Flour
Absorbs moisture from the corn and helps the batter hold together in the pan.
Lard or butter
Fries the outside to golden brown and adds richness and flavour.

The step that matters

Frying in hot fat. The fat must be hot before the spoonfuls go in. If it is too cool, the batter soaks up grease and turns soggy; if it is too hot, the outside browns before the centre cooks through.

“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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