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Mock Fried Oysters

A fried corn batter served in clear drippings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Mock Fried Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine minced corn, salt, pepper, melted butter, prepared flour, and beaten egg.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat clear drippings in a pan until it smokes.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into the hot drippings, frying no more than four at a time.

  3. Fry until golden brown, then remove and place on brown paper for a moment.

  4. Serve immediately.

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

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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
Provides the main body and sweet flavor that stands in for oysters.
Prepared flour
Binds the mixture so the spoonfuls hold their shape while frying.
Egg
Binds the mixture and helps it set into a cohesive fritter.
Melted butter
Adds richness and flavor and helps the fritters brown.

The step that matters

Frying no more than four at a time. Adding too many spoonfuls at once drops the oil temperature, so the fritters soak up fat and turn greasy instead of crisping and browning evenly.

“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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