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 ↓
Corn Oysters
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
In a bowl, combine grated corn, milk, eggs, salt, and pepper.
Add flour gradually until a batter forms.
Cook and serve
Heat butter in a frying pan over medium heat.
Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into the hot butter.
Cook until browned on both sides.
Serve hot for breakfast or as a side dish for dinner.
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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Corn + milktop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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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).
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
- Sweet corn
- Provides the main bulk and sweet flavor of the fritters.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and help set the fritters as they cook.
- Flour
- Thickens the batter so the fritters hold their shape in the pan.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and loosens the batter to a spoonable consistency.
- Butter
- Fats the pan and promotes browning on the outside of the fritters.
The step that matters
Adding the flour gradually. Flour hydrates and thickens as it is mixed in, so adding it slowly lets you stop once the batter is spoonable. Too much flour at once makes dense, heavy fritters that may not cook through evenly.
“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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