Skip to main content
Main

Corn Oysters

Corn oysters are fried corn fritters made with grated corn, eggs, flour, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Corn Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine the grated corn, eggs, flour, corn starch, baking powder, sugar, and softened butter.

  2. Season the mixture with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat oil in a pan until very hot.

  2. Drop teaspoonfuls of the mixture into the hot oil and fry until golden brown.

  3. Serve warm.

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. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Fresh young corn
Provides the main body and sweet corn flavor of the fritters.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together and help the fritters hold their shape.
Flour
Adds structure by helping the batter set as it cooks.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lightens the fritters and helps them rise.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor and softens the texture of the batter.

The step that matters

Frying in very hot oil. If the oil is not very hot, the batter absorbs oil and turns greasy before the outside sets. Very hot oil sets and browns the surface quickly, keeping the inside tender and the fritters from falling 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.

More corn fritters recipes

Green 46Sweet 7 See all 396 →

You might also like

Cream of Corn SoupCream of Corn Soup50 recipesGreen Corn SoupGreen Corn Soup46 recipesCornmeal GruelCornmeal Gruel41 recipesCornmeal PuddingCornmeal Pudding32 recipes