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 grated corn, milk, eggs, and butter.
Add flour gradually to create a batter.
Fry
Heat a griddle and add butter.
Spoon the batter onto the griddle and 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 together and help set the fritters as they cook.
- Flour
- Provides structure so the batter holds together rather than running on the griddle.
- Grated corn
- Supplies the main body, sweetness and moisture of the fritters.
- Butter
- Adds richness and flavor and helps the outside brown in the pan.
The step that matters
Frying until golden brown on both sides. The griddle must be hot enough for the batter to brown and set quickly. If it is too cool, the fritters absorb fat, turn greasy and stay pale and soggy inside. Browning also builds flavor through the Maillard reaction.
“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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