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Cream Corn

A creamy corn side dish made with milk, cream, butter, flour, and seasoned with salt, pepper, walnuts, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cream Corn

Ingredients

Directions

Make the creamed corn

  1. Boil the corn and half of the milk together, then strain the mixture.

  2. In a separate bowl, work the butter and flour together.

  3. Gradually add the strained corn, remaining milk, and cream to the butter and flour mixture.

  4. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Serve

  1. When ready to serve, sprinkle with chopped English walnuts and parsley.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Walnut + parsleytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together865 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Corn + walnuttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together349 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Corn
Forms the body of the dish and gives it its sweet, starchy flavor.
Butter and flour
Form a roux that thickens the milk and cream into a smooth sauce.
Milk and cream
Provide the liquid base and richness that make the sauce creamy.

The step that matters

Adding the corn mixture to the roux. Adding the liquid gradually while stirring keeps the flour from clumping, so the sauce thickens smoothly instead of becoming lumpy.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, milk, cream, butter, flour, walnut, pepper):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, milk, cream, butter, flour, walnut, pepper. 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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