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
In a bowl, mix the grated corn, eggs, milk, and melted butter.
Add enough flour to create a thin batter.
Stir in a pinch of baking soda and salt to taste.
Fry and serve
Heat a frying pan and pour in the batter to fry like griddle cakes until golden brown.
Serve warm.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Corn + milktop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,165 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Grated corn
- Provides the main body, sweetness and corn flavour of the fritters.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and help the fritters set firm when cooked.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and loosens the batter to a pourable consistency.
- Flour
- Thickens the batter and gives the fritters structure as they cook.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the batter to lighten the texture and help it rise slightly.
- Melted butter
- Adds richness and helps the surface brown golden in the pan.
The step that matters
Frying until golden brown. The batter is thin, so the pan must be hot enough to set the fritters quickly. Too cool a pan lets them soak up oil and stay soft, while frying too hot can scorch the outside 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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