Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Scalloped Corn
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Mix the corn with the soft bread crumbs.
Make a white sauce by combining the flour, butter, milk, and salt.
Combine the corn mixture with the white sauce.
Bake
Put the mixture into a buttered baking dish and cover with the buttered dry bread crumbs.
Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until the crumbs are brown, about 20 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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Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + milktop 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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Bread + milktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,324 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
- Provides the main body and sweetness of the dish.
- Flour
- Thickens the milk and butter into a white sauce that binds the corn.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the white sauce, adding moisture and softness.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, and helps the crumbs brown in the oven.
- Soft stale bread crumbs
- Absorb moisture and help give the mixture body and structure.
The step that matters
Bake until the crumbs are brown. The sauce needs enough heat to thicken and bubble through, and the topping needs to brown without drying the corn. Pulling it too early leaves a thin, pale top; leaving it too long dries the dish.
“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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