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 Fritters
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Beat the eggs in a bowl.
Add the milk, canned corn, salt, sugar, and enough flour to create a thick batter.
Mix in the baking powder and melted butter.
Fry and serve
Heat lard in a frying pan over medium-high heat.
Drop spoonfuls of the batter into the hot lard 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.
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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Milk + corntop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Flour + buttertop 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).
Flour and butter 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 add richness and structure as they set.
- Flour
- Provides the starch that thickens the batter and gives the fritters structure.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter, helping the fritters rise and turn light.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and loosens the flour into a pourable batter.
- Canned corn
- Supplies the main flavor and sweetness and adds moisture to the batter.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown when fried.
The step that matters
Frying the spoonfuls of batter in hot lard. If the lard is not hot enough, the fritters absorb excess fat and turn greasy and pale. Enough heat sets the outside quickly and gives a golden crust.
“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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