Name: Canned Corn
Ingredients: 2 quarts sweet corn; 1 tablespoon baking soda; 1 tablespoon sugar; butter; pepper; coarse sea salt

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 ↓

Canned Corn

Ingredients

Directions

Cook 2 quarts of sweet corn until boiling hot.
Fill tin cans with the hot corn.
When ready to use, turn the corn into a colander and rinse with cold water.
Add baking soda and sugar while cooking.
Season with butter, pepper, and coarse sea 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.

Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,324 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,345 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Corn + sugartop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked 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

Sweet corn: Forms the main body of the dish and provides its sweet flavor and texture.
Baking soda: Raises the corn's pH, which helps it soften and keep a brighter color while cooking.
Sugar: Adds sweetness that balances the corn's natural flavor.
Butter: Adds richness and carries flavor, giving the corn a smooth mouthfeel.

“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.