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 Oysters
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
In a bowl, combine the grated corn, milk, eggs, and melted butter.
Add flour gradually until a batter forms.
Fry
Heat butter in a skillet and drop spoonfuls of the batter into the hot butter.
Fry until golden brown on both sides.
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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Butter + flourtop 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).
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Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,345 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Butter and flour 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 help the fritters hold their shape while frying.
- Flour
- Gives the batter body so the corn is held together rather than falling apart.
- Butter
- Adds richness and helps the outside brown in the hot skillet.
- Green grated corn
- Provides the main body, sweetness and moisture of the fritters.
- Milk
- Adds moisture to loosen the batter and contributes to browning.
The step that matters
Fry until golden brown on both sides. The skillet must be hot enough when the batter goes in so the outside sets and browns quickly. If the pan is too cool, the fritters absorb fat, turn greasy and stay pale and soft inside.
“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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