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Corn Fritters

A fried corn batter made with milk, flour, eggs, and lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Corn Fritters

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 ↓

Corn Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Score the corn down the middle and scrape off all the kernels, leaving only the hulls.

  2. Add salt, milk, and enough flour to create a batter thicker than pancake batter.

  3. Separate the egg whites and beat them until very light.

  4. Stir in the yolks without beating, then fold in the beaten egg whites.

Fry and serve

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the batter into hot lard.

  2. Fry until brown on one side, then turn quickly to brown the other side.

  3. Serve immediately.

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 + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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

Eggs
Whipped whites lighten the batter and help the fritters puff and stay tender.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the thick batter together while frying.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the flour into a spoonable batter.
Corn
Supplies the kernels that give the fritters their sweetness and body.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Stirring the whites in vigorously knocks out the air they hold, so the fritters turn out dense instead of light. Fold gently and keep the whites airy.

“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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