Why it works: Corn and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,345 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Fried Corn Mush
Ingredients
Directions
Cut the cold corn mush into slices ½ inch thick and of equal lengths.
Heat a frying pan over medium heat and add the butter and lard.
Once hot, add the slices of mush and fry until both sides are light brown.
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.
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Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Cold corn mush
- Forms the main body of the dish; firm when chilled, so it holds its shape while frying.
- Butter
- Adds richness and flavour, and helps the surface brown in the pan.
- Lard
- Conducts heat well and gives a crisp, golden surface when frying.
The step that matters
Frying the slices until light brown. The mush must be cold and firm so the slices hold together. Frying over medium heat lets the outside brown and crisp before the inside dries out.
“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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