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 ↓
Green Corn Fritters
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the batter
Grate the green corn from the cob.
In a bowl, beat the eggs well and add the milk or cream.
Gradually mix in the corn, beating vigorously.
Add coarse sea salt to taste.
Stir in the melted butter.
Thicken the mixture with flour until it holds together.
Fry
Heat lard in a pan and fry spoonfuls of the mixture until golden 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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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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Butter + flourtop 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).
Butter and flour 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
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and set the fritters as they cook.
- Green corn
- Provides the main body, sweetness and tender texture of the fritters.
- All-purpose flour
- Thickens the batter so it holds together in the pan.
- Melted butter
- Adds richness and fat for flavour and a tender crumb.
- Lard
- Conducts heat in the pan and helps the outsides brown golden.
The step that matters
Thicken with flour until the mixture holds together. Too little flour leaves a loose batter that spreads and breaks apart in the hot fat, while too much makes the fritters dense and heavy. Add it gradually and judge by whether spoonfuls keep their shape.
“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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