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Corn Fritters or Oysters

Corn fritters made by mixing grated corn with eggs, flour, and salt, then frying in lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,165 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Corn Fritters or Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the batter

  1. Grate or cut the corn from the cobs.

  2. In a bowl, mix the corn with the beaten eggs, flour, and salt.

Fry

  1. Heat lard in a pan to 400°F (200°C) to a depth of ¼ inch.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into the hot lard.

  3. Fry until browned on one side, then turn to brown the other side.

  4. Serve very hot.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Corn + eggtop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,484 recipes

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

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
Forms the bulk of the fritter and adds sweetness and moisture to the batter.
Eggs
Bind the corn and flour together and help the fritters hold their shape.
Flour
Thickens the mixture so the spoonfuls hold together in the hot fat.
Lard
Conducts heat to cook the fritters and browns their surfaces.

The step that matters

Keep the lard hot before adding the mixture. If the lard is not hot enough, the fritters absorb excess fat and turn greasy. If it is too hot, the outside browns before the centre cooks through.

“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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