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Corn Balls

Corn balls are fried balls made of corn, mashed potatoes, egg, salt, pepper, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and potato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 938 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Corn Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, mix corn and mashed potatoes.

  2. Add the beaten egg, salt, and pepper; mix thoroughly.

Shape and cook

  1. Form the mixture into balls.

  2. Roll each ball in flour.

  3. Fry in a hot buttered skillet until golden brown.

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 + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together938 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  2. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Corn
Adds sweetness and bulk, giving the balls their main body and flavor.
Mashed potatoes
Adds starch and moisture so the mixture holds together when shaped.
Egg
Binds the mixture so the balls keep their shape while frying.
Flour
Forms a dry outer coat that helps the surface brown in the pan.
Butter
Adds fat for frying, promoting browning and a rich flavor.

The step that matters

Frying in a hot buttered skillet. If the pan is not hot enough, the balls absorb fat and turn greasy, and the outside may not brown before the centre is heated through. A properly hot pan sets the flour coating quickly and gives an even golden crust.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, egg, pepper, flour, butter):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, egg, pepper, flour, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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