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Scalloped Corn

Scalloped Corn is a baked corn dish with tomatoes, cracker crumbs, butter, and cream.

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

Why it works: Corn and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,099 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Scalloped Corn

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cut the top off the corn and scrape the kernels from the cobs.

  3. Butter some scalloped baking dishes.

Layer and bake

  1. Layer the corn, tomatoes, cracker crumbs, salt, pepper, and butter in the dishes, starting and ending with crumbs.

  2. Pour a little cream over each layer.

  3. Bake until heated through and golden on top.

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. Corn + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,099 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Corn
Forms the main body of the dish and provides its sweet flavor.
Tomatoes
Add moisture and acidity that brighten the corn's sweetness.
Cracker crumbs
Absorb liquid and form a crisp, golden top layer as they bake.
Heavy cream
Adds moisture and richness, helping the layers turn tender and creamy.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and promotes browning on the top layer.

The step that matters

Pour a little cream over each layer. Cream moistens the crumbs and corn so they bake tender rather than dry. Too little leaves the dish dry, while too much makes it soggy and slow to set.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, pepper, butter, cream. 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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