Skip to main content
Main

Stewed Green Corn

Stewed green corn is a simple dish of corn kernels simmered in milk, butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Stewed Green Corn

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the corn

  1. Cut the corn from the cob by slicing lengthwise through each row of grains.

  2. Scrape the grains free from the hull using the back and pointed end of the knife.

Stew

  1. Place the corn in a pot and barely cover it with cold milk.

  2. Season with butter and coarse sea salt, adding sugar if using field corn.

  3. Cover and stew gently until very tender, stirring frequently to prevent burning.

  4. Once cooked, season with pepper.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

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

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

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

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Fresh corn
Provides the sweet, starchy base that becomes tender and creamy as it stews.
Cold milk
Supplies liquid that gently cooks the corn and forms a creamy, rich sauce.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the stewed corn.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to field corn, which is less sweet than fresh sweet corn.

The step that matters

Stewing gently and stirring often. Milk and corn sugars can scorch on the bottom of the pot at high heat. Gentle heat and frequent stirring keep the milk from burning while the starch softens the corn.

“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.

You might also like

Corn FrittersCorn Fritters203 recipesCream of Corn SoupCream of Corn Soup50 recipesGreen Corn SoupGreen Corn Soup46 recipesCornmeal GruelCornmeal Gruel41 recipes