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Corn Fritters

A batter of corn, eggs, flour, and spices fried into golden fritters.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Corn Fritters

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

  1. Beat the egg yolks until creamy.

  2. Add the chopped corn and blend in the dry ingredients.

  3. Fold in the egg whites last.

Fry

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the batter into hot oil and fry until golden brown, or brown in a skillet greased with butter or lard.

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.

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.

  1. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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
Egg yolks enrich and bind the batter, while folded whites add lightness.
Flour
Provides structure so the batter holds together when fried.
Baking powder
Releases gas that makes the fritters rise and turn light.
Corn
Adds body, moisture and sweet corn flavour to the batter.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites last. Folding gently keeps the whites' trapped air intact, so the batter stays light and rises well. Stirring vigorously would deflate the foam and make the fritters dense.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Jalapenofits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, egg, flour, milk, 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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