Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Corn Oysters
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the batter
Split the corn down each row of grains and scrape out the pulp.
In a bowl, combine the corn pulp, eggs, sweet cream, flour, pepper, salt, and baking powder.
Fry
Heat a mixture of lard and butter in a frying pan.
Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into the hot fat and fry until golden brown.
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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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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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).
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Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,345 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
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
- Corn
- Supplies the bulk and sweet corn flavour of the fritters.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and help set the fritters as they cook.
- Flour
- Provides the starch that gives the fritters body and structure.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas during cooking so the fritters puff and stay light.
- Sweet cream
- Adds moisture and richness to the batter.
The step that matters
Frying the spoonfuls in hot fat. If the fat is not hot enough, the fritters absorb oil and turn greasy before the outside sets and browns. Hot fat seals the surface quickly, so the inside cooks through while the outside turns golden.
“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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