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Dessert

Green Corn Fritters

A batter of buttermilk, corn, eggs, flour, and baking powder fried into golden fritters served with maple syrup or jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Buttermilk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Green Corn Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the corn

  1. If using fresh corn, cook it on the cob.

  2. If using fresh corn, cut the kernels from the cob and scrape off any remaining corn.

  3. If using canned corn, chop it finely.

Make the batter

  1. Separate the eggs.

  2. Beat the yolks.

  3. Mix in the buttermilk, salt, baking powder, and enough flour to create a batter similar to pancake batter.

  4. Stir in the corn.

  5. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  6. Gently fold the stiff egg whites into the batter.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat a frying pan with a mixture of lard and butter.

  2. Place a large spoonful of batter in the pan, ensuring not to crowd them.

  3. Fry until golden brown, adding more lard and butter as needed.

  4. Serve hot with maple syrup or jelly.

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. Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  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

Eggs
Yolks enrich the batter and whipped whites lighten it so the fritters stay tender.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the fritters rise and become light.
Buttermilk
Adds moisture and tang, and its acidity works with the baking powder to aid rising.
Corn
Provides the main sweet flavor and bulk, with moist kernels giving texture to the fritters.
Flour
Forms the structure of the batter so the fritters hold their shape when fried.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whipped whites hold air that makes the fritters light, so folding gently rather than stirring keeps the air from collapsing and the batter from deflating.

“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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