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Corn Oysters

A fried corn fritter made with grated corn, flour, eggs, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Corn Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Grate the corn and place it in a bowl.

  2. Add the flour, salt, and pepper to the corn mixture and mix the mixture well.

  3. Beat the egg whites until very light.

  4. Gently fold the beaten egg whites into the corn mixture.

Fry

  1. Heat butter and lard in a skillet over medium heat.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into the hot fat and fry until golden brown.

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. Flour + buttertop 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).

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

Corn
Provides the bulk and sweet corn flavor of the fritter.
Flour
Helps bind the grated corn so the spoonfuls hold their shape.
Eggs
Whipped whites lighten the batter, while the yolks add richness and help bind it.
Butter and lard
Fat for frying that gives the outside a golden, browned crust.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whipped whites hold air that makes the batter light. Stirring instead of folding deflates them, leaving dense, heavy oysters.

“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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