Why it works: Corn and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,168 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Green Corn
Ingredients
Directions
Husk the corn and place it in a kettle of boiling water.
Add sugar and boil for 5 minutes, covered.
Transfer the corn to the Caloric and leave for 2 hours or more.
Serve hot, rolled in a napkin.
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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Corn + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together7,168 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
- Green corn
- Provides the main body, starch and sweet kernels that become tender when cooked.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness that balances the mild, natural flavour of the fresh corn.
The step that matters
Boil for 5 minutes, covered. Fresh corn cooks quickly, and boiling it longer than needed toughens the kernels and dulls their sweetness, so timing matters.
“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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