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Preserve

To Preserve Corn

A method of preserving corn by layering with salt and storing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

To Preserve Corn

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the corn

  1. Boil the corn until the milk is killed.

  2. Let it cool, then cut the corn from the ear.

Salt and store

  1. In a new jar, layer 1 pint of salt and 3 pints of corn until the jar is full.

  2. Cover the top with salt and store in a dry place.

Use and cook

  1. When ready to use, remove the top, soak the corn until fresh.

  2. Season the corn as you would fresh corn, adding 1 tablespoon of white sugar.

  3. Cook the corn in cream for a while.

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. Sugar + corntop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and inhibits spoilage microbes, preserving the corn in the jar.
White sugar
Adds sweetness when seasoning the soaked corn.
Cream
Adds fat and richness as the corn cooks in it.

The step that matters

Layering the corn with salt. Salt must fully cover each layer of corn so no pockets of air or moisture remain. Salt draws water out of the corn and slows microbial growth, so gaps can let the corn spoil.

“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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