Why it works: Butter and flour 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 ↓
Green Corn Fritters
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the batter
Grate the corn and place it in a bowl.
Add the eggs, butter, salt, and just enough flour to bind the mixture.
Fry
Heat lard in a deep pan until boiling.
Drop spoonfuls of the batter into the boiling lard.
Fry until golden brown and cooked through.
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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Butter + flourtop 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).
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Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,345 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Butter and flour 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 and provides its sweet, starchy flavour.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and set during frying to hold the fritter together.
- Flour
- Adds just enough starch to bind the mixture so the fritters hold their shape.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat for flavour and a tender texture.
The step that matters
Drop spoonfuls of the batter into the boiling lard. The fat must be hot enough to set the outside quickly. If the batter goes into cool fat, it absorbs oil, turns greasy and may fall apart before the centre cooks.
“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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