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Dried Corn Hulled with Saleratus

A dried corn dish hulled and seasoned with saleratus, butter, pepper, and optionally milk or cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Dried Corn Hulled with Saleratus

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the corn

  1. Cover the dried corn with cold water and add the saleratus.

  2. Boil the corn until the hulls crack and curl up.

  3. Wash the corn 3-4 times in cold water, rubbing it to remove the hulls.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil the corn in salted boiling water or a mixture of milk and water until tender.

  2. Season with pepper and butter, and serve as a vegetable.

  3. Alternatively, use with milk or cream and sugar for breakfast or supper.

  4. Cold boiled corn can be fried in butter or heated in milk.

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. Butter + milktop 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

Dried corn
Forms the main body of the dish, softening into tender kernels when boiled.
Saleratus
An alkaline leavener that loosens the corn hulls so they crack and can be rubbed off.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour when the corn is seasoned or fried.
Milk or cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the corn and giving a creamy finish.

The step that matters

Boil the corn until the hulls crack and curl up. Saleratus is an alkaline agent that softens the tough hulls. The corn must boil until they visibly crack, otherwise they will not rub off cleanly in the washing step and will stay tough.

“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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