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Green Corn Griddle Cakes and Fritters

A batter of grated green corn, milk, eggs, and flour is cooked into cakes or fritters on a griddle or in fat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Green Corn Griddle Cakes and Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine grated corn, milk, egg yolks, salt, pepper, and flour to form a medium stiff batter.

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff and gently fold them into the batter.

Cook

  1. Heat a griddle or frying pan and add just enough fat to prevent sticking.

  2. Pour batter onto the griddle to form cakes and cook until golden brown on both sides.

  3. For fritters, drop tablespoonfuls of batter into hot fat and fry until golden brown.

  4. Remove fritters with a skimmer and drain on brown paper before serving 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 + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they lighten the batter and help the cakes and fritters rise and stay tender.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter so it holds together while cooking.
Flour
Provides the structure that lets the batter hold its shape as it cooks.
Grated green corn
Supplies the main body, sweetness and corn flavor of the batter.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter to a pourable consistency.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whipped egg whites trap air that makes the batter light. Stirring them in vigorously knocks that air out, leaving cakes and fritters dense instead of tender.

“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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