Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓
Green Corn Patties
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
In a bowl, combine grated corn, egg, flour, sweet milk, pepper, and salt.
Fry and serve
Heat equal parts butter and lard on a griddle.
Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto the griddle and fry until golden brown.
Serve hot.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Corn + milktop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,324 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,165 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
- Grated corn
- Provides the main body and sweet corn flavor of the patties.
- Egg
- Binds the mixture so the patties hold together while frying.
- Flour
- Adds structure, helping the batter set and hold its shape.
- Sweet milk
- Adds moisture, loosening the batter to a spoonable consistency.
- Butter and lard
- Fat for frying that conducts heat and encourages golden browning.
The step that matters
Frying the spoonfuls until golden brown. The griddle must be hot enough before the batter goes in, so the outside sets and browns quickly. If it is too cool, the patties absorb fat, turn greasy, and may fall apart before the egg and flour set.
“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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