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 ↓
Corn Fritters
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Beat the egg until light.
Add the milk to the egg and mix well.
Pour this mixture over the flour and beat until smooth.
Stir in the salt, pepper, and melted butter.
Fold in the chopped corn.
Fry
Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into boiling lard and cook for about 3 minutes.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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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Milk + corntop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Pepper + corntop 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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Flour + corntop 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
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add richness and structure as they set when fried.
- Flour
- Provides the main structure that holds the fritters together while frying.
- Milk
- Hydrates the flour and loosens the batter to a pourable consistency.
- Corn
- Adds sweetness, moisture and texture to the fritters.
- Melted butter
- Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.
The step that matters
Drop spoonfuls into boiling lard. The lard must be hot enough to set the outside quickly; if it is too cool, the batter absorbs fat and turns greasy and heavy instead of crisp and golden.
“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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