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Artificial Oysters

A fried corn fritter shaped like an oyster.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Artificial Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Make and shape the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine grated corn, beaten egg, flour, butter, salt, and pepper. Mix well.

  2. Scoop a tablespoon of the batter and shape it like an oyster.

Fry and finish

  1. Fry the shaped batter in a pan until light brown.

  2. Butter the fried oysters; if available, use cream instead of butter.

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

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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

Young green corn
Provides the bulk and the sweet corn flavor of the fritters.
Egg
Binds the batter so the fritters hold their shape.
Flour
Adds starch that sets during frying to give the fritters structure.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the surface brown in the pan.

The step that matters

Frying until light brown. Frying sets the starch and egg in the batter, and browning develops flavor on the surface. Removing the fritters too early leaves the centre pale and soft, so they may fall apart.

“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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