Name: Green Corn Fritters
Ingredients: 1 pint grated young and tender green corn; 3 eggs; 2 tablespoons milk or cream; 1 tablespoon melted butter (if using milk); 1 teaspoon salt; flour (enough to thicken); 1 teaspoon baking powder; hot lard or a mixture of butter and lard for frying

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 ↓

Green Corn Fritters

Ingredients

1 pint grated young and tender green corn
3 eggs
2 tablespoons milk or cream
1 tablespoon melted butter (if using milk)
1 teaspoon salt
flour (enough to thicken)
1 teaspoon baking powder
hot lard or a mixture of butter and lard for frying

Directions

Make the batter

Beat the eggs well in a bowl.
Gradually add the grated corn, milk, and melted butter to the eggs.
Mix in enough flour to hold the mixture together, then add the baking powder.

Fry

Heat a kettle of hot lard or a mixture of butter and lard.
Drop spoonfuls of the corn mixture into the hot fat and fry until light brown.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,955 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,165 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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

Eggs: Bind the batter and help the fritters hold their shape while frying.
Green corn: Supplies the main body, sweetness and moist texture of the fritters.
Flour: Thickens the batter so it holds together when dropped into the fat.
Baking powder: Releases gas in the batter, helping the fritters puff and stay light.
Milk or cream: Adds moisture and richness, softening the batter and aiding browning.

The step that matters

Drop spoonfuls into hot fat. The fat must be hot enough to set the outside quickly, so the fritters brown and do not absorb excess grease or spread into flat, soggy pieces.

“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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Green Corn Fritters