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Boiled Green Corn

Boiled green corn is cooked in salted water and served whole or cut from the cob, seasoned with butter, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,324 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Boiled Green Corn

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the corn

  1. Choose young, full-grown corn that is not hard.

  2. Strip off the outer leaves and carefully turn back the innermost covering. Remove all threads of silk and re-cover the ear with the thin husk.

  3. Tie the top with a bit of thread.

  4. Cut off the stalks close to the cob.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil salted water.

  2. Cook the corn for 20 to 30 minutes, depending on size and age.

  3. Serve the whole ear wrapped in a napkin. Alternatively, cut the corn from the cob while hot.

  4. Season with butter, pepper, and salt.

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. Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

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

  2. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Young corn ears
Sweet, tender kernels that become soft and juicy when boiled.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavor over the hot kernels.

The step that matters

Cook the corn for 20 to 30 minutes, depending on size and age.. Overcooking toughens the kernels and dulls their sweetness, while undercooking leaves starch firm and raw-tasting. Checking tenderness with a knife or fork helps hit the right point for the ear.

“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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