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
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Select full ears of corn with tender, milky grains.
Strip off the outer husks and remove all silk.
Cook and serve
Boil the corn in a pot of boiling water for about 20 minutes until tender.
Drain the ears and serve in a covered dish or folded in a napkin.
Before eating, butter each ear and season with pepper and salt.
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.
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Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,324 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,345 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
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Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Corn
- Provides the sweet flavor and tender texture that the boiling brings out.
- Butter
- Adds richness and moisture to the cooked kernels.
The step that matters
Boil until tender. Boiling for about 20 minutes softens the kernels; cooking too briefly leaves them starchy and tough, while overcooking makes them mushy and dull in flavor.
“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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