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Corn Fritters

Corn fritters are fried corn kernels mixed with milk, eggs, flour, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Corn Fritters

Why it works: Corn and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Corn Fritters

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the corn

  1. Score the corn down the center of each row of grains and press out the pulp with the back of a knife, leaving the hull on the cob.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine the corn pulp, milk, egg yolks, salt, pepper, and flour; beat well.

  2. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites to stiff peaks and gently fold them into the mixture along with the baking powder.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat lard or dripping in a frying pan.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into the hot fat.

  3. Fry until brown on one side, then turn and brown the other side.

  4. Remove with a skimmer, drain on brown paper, and serve very hot.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
Provides the main body and sweet flavor of the fritters.
Eggs
Whipped whites lighten the batter, while yolks add richness and help bind it.
Flour
Gives the batter structure so the fritters hold their shape when fried.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the fritters rise and turn light.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter to a spoonable consistency.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites beaten to stiff peaks trap air that lifts the batter. Overmixing or stirring vigorously deflates them, leaving dense fritters, so fold gently and only until combined.

“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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