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 ↓
Mock Oysters
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
In a bowl, mix the grated corn, milk, flour, drawn butter, pepper, and egg until well combined.
Cook
Drop a tablespoonful of the mixture into hot butter in a skillet.
Fry for 8 to 10 minutes until golden brown, or bake on a griddle.
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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Corn + milktop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,324 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,165 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Grated green corn
- Provides the main body and sweet corn flavor of the fritters.
- Flour
- Gives the batter structure so the fritters hold their shape while cooking.
- Egg
- Binds the mixture together and helps it set as it cooks.
- Drawn butter
- Adds richness and helps the outside brown in the pan.
- Milk
- Adds moisture so the batter is loose enough to spoon and spread.
The step that matters
Frying in hot butter. The skillet needs to be hot enough so the fritters brown on the outside and set before they fall apart or absorb too much fat. Browning comes from the Maillard reaction on the surface, which needs sufficient heat.
“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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