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Bena's Stewed Corn

A simple stew of corn, butter, pepper, salt, water, sweet cream, and flour.

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

Bena's Stewed Corn

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Shave the corn off the ear, avoiding cutting into the cob.

Cook the corn

  1. In a skillet, combine the corn, butter, pepper, salt, and enough water to cover.

  2. Cover and cook slowly over low heat for 30 to 45 minutes, stirring often.

  3. Add more water if necessary to prevent browning.

Finish and serve

  1. A few minutes before serving, stir in the sweet cream thickened with flour and boil well.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Butter and flour 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
Forms the main body of the dish and provides its sweet, starchy base.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavor and gives a smooth mouthfeel.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and body, becoming thicker and silkier when boiled.
Flour
Thickens the cream so it coats the corn instead of staying watery.

The step that matters

Stir in the cream and boil well. The flour must be fully heated in the liquid to thicken it and remove its raw starchy taste. Boiling briefly after adding the cream thickens the sauce so it clings to the corn.

“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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