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Green Corn Boiled

Boiled fresh green corn served hot with butter, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,324 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Green Corn Boiled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the corn

  1. Remove all the husk except the inner layer from the corn.

  2. Strip it down to remove the silk and any defective grains.

  3. Replace the inner husk and tie it at the upper end of each ear of corn.

Boil and serve

  1. Boil a large pot of water, then add the corn to the boiling water.

  2. Cook for 15 minutes for medium ears or 20 minutes for large ears.

  3. Remove the corn from the boiling water and take off the strings.

  4. Optionally, strip off the inner husk quickly.

  5. Serve hot, covered with a clean napkin to retain heat.

  6. Serve with plenty of sweet butter, pepper, and salt, mixed together in a hot gravy-bowl.

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

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

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

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

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh green corn
Forms the main body of the dish, providing the sweet, tender kernels that are eaten.
Sweet butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavor and coats the kernels.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the kernels and brings out their natural sweetness.

The step that matters

Cook for the stated time. Overcooking toughens corn kernels and dulls their sweetness, while undercooking leaves starches firm. Timing should match ear size, so medium and large ears are cooked for different lengths.

“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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