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Corn Oysters

Corn fritters made from grated corn mixed with flour, eggs, and salt, then fried in lard and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Corn Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Grate the corn as finely as possible.

  2. Dredge the grated corn with flour.

  3. Beat the eggs and gradually mix them with the corn.

  4. Add the salt and mix well.

Fry and serve

  1. In a hot pan, combine equal parts lard and butter until boiling.

  2. Drop the corn mixture into the hot fat in the shape of oval cakes.

  3. Fry until brown.

  4. Serve warm, great for tea.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Corn
Forms the bulk of the fritter, supplying starch and sweet corn flavor.
Flour
Absorbs moisture from the grated corn and helps the batter hold its shape.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together and help it set firmly while frying.
Lard and butter
Frying fat that conducts heat and browns the outside of the fritters.

The step that matters

Drop the batter into hot fat. Fat must be hot enough before the batter goes in, otherwise the fritters absorb grease, cook unevenly, and fail to brown and set properly.

“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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