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Corn Oysters

Corn fritters made from corn kernels, flour, eggs, and butter, fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Corn Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Remove the kernels from the corn ears.

  2. In a bowl, mix the corn, flour, eggs, and salt until well combined.

Fry

  1. Heat butter in a frying pan over medium-high heat.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into the hot butter and fry until golden brown on both sides.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 main bulk and sweet flavour of the fritters.
Flour
Adds body so the batter holds together around the corn.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help set the fritters as they cook.
Butter
Conducts heat in the pan and browns the outside of the fritters.

The step that matters

Frying over medium-high heat until golden on both sides. If the pan is too cool, the fritters absorb excess butter and turn greasy before the eggs set. If it is too hot, the outside browns before the centre cooks through. Steady medium-high heat gives even browning and a fully set interior.

“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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