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 ↓
Baked Corn
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Boil the corn until done.
In a bowl, beat together the egg, flour, milk, and salt.
Bake and serve
Pour the hot corn into the mixture.
Transfer to a pan and place small pieces of butter on top.
Bake until browned.
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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Flour + buttertop 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).
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
- Forms the bulk of the dish and provides its main texture and sweetness.
- Egg
- Binds the mixture and helps it set into a custard-like texture when baked.
- Flour
- Thickens the milk and egg mixture so it holds together rather than running.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and richness, forming the liquid base of the custard.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness and helps the top brown in the oven.
The step that matters
Bake until browned. Baking too briefly leaves the egg and flour custard loose, while overbaking can make it dry and tough. Watch for a set center and a golden top.
“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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