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Mock Oysters of Corn

A dish of corn kernels grated and mixed with flour and egg yolks, fried to a thick, light brown consistency.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Mock Oysters of Corn

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Grate the corn kernels as finely as possible.

  2. Mix the grated corn with flour and beaten egg yolks.

Fry

  1. Heat butter in a frying pan.

  2. Drop portions of the mixture, the size of an oyster, into the hot butter.

  3. Fry until they are thick and light brown.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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
Provides the main bulk and natural sweetness of the fritters.
Flour
Absorbs moisture and helps bind the grated corn into shapes.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture and add richness that helps it set when fried.
Butter
Adds fat that conducts heat and browns the outside of each fritter.

The step that matters

Dropping the mixture into hot butter. The batter is loose and soft, so it needs a hot pan to sear the outside quickly. This sets the surface so the portions hold their shape. If the butter is not hot, the mixture soaks up fat, spreads out, and turns greasy instead of crisp and golden.

“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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