Why it works: Sugar and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,168 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Boiled Green Corn on Cob
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the corn
Select young sugar corn that is fully grown but not hard.
Test the corn by piercing the grain; milk should escape in a jet.
Strip off the outer leaves and carefully turn back the innermost covering.
Remove all threads of silk.
Recover the ear with the thin husk and tie it at the top with a bit of thread.
Cook and serve
Place the corn in boiling salted water and cook for 20 to 30 minutes, depending on size and age.
Cut off the stalks close to the cob.
Serve wrapped in a clean napkin.
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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Sugar + corntop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together7,168 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Young sugar corn
- Provides the sweet, tender kernels; its milky juice shows it is at the right stage.
- Coarse sea salt
- Seasons the cooking water so the corn is flavoured as it cooks.
The step that matters
Testing the corn for ripeness. Corn that is too young has watery milk and tastes thin, while overripe corn turns hard and starchy. Piercing a grain to check that milk escapes in a jet confirms it is at the right stage before cooking.
“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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