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Stewed Corn

Stewed corn with sugar, salt, pepper, and cream, cooked gently and served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Stewed Corn

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the corn

  1. Husk the corn and remove the silk.

  2. Boil the ears in water for 5 minutes, then drain and cool.

  3. Cut down the center of each row of grains with a sharp knife.

  4. Press the corn out with a blunt knife into a saucepan.

Stew and serve

  1. Add sugar, salt, pepper, and cream to the corn.

  2. Cook carefully for 5 minutes, preferably in a double boiler, and serve hot.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Corn + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Pepper + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Corn + creamtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

Pepper and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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 body of the dish; pressing the kernels releases its starchy pulp to thicken the stew.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the stewed corn.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the corn's natural flavor.

The step that matters

Cook carefully for 5 minutes. Cream can curdle or scorch if it boils hard or sits over direct heat. Gentle heat, such as a double boiler, keeps the cream smooth while the corn thickens.

“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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