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Green Corn Au Gratin

A gratin of boiled green corn with béchamel sauce, bread crumbs, and butter, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Green Corn Au Gratin

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the corn

  1. Cook the corn in boiling salted water for 10 minutes.

  2. Wrap the corn in a cloth.

  3. Once cool, shave off the kernels.

Make the filling

  1. Place the kernels in a sauté pan.

  2. Add a little strong Béchamel sauce.

  3. Simmer for 10 minutes until heated through.

  4. Season the mixture.

  5. Transfer to gratin dishes.

Bake and serve

  1. Sprinkle the top with fresh bread crumbs and small bits of butter.

  2. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until the top is a rich brown color.

  3. Serve hot in the same dish.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Corn + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together547 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sauce + breadtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,934 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Fresh corn
Provides the sweet, starchy bulk of the dish.
Strong béchamel sauce
Adds moisture and a creamy binding that holds the kernels together.
Fresh bread crumbs
Form a crisp topping that browns in the oven for contrasting texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that helps the topping brown evenly.

The step that matters

Bake until the top is a rich brown. Browning on the crumbs and butter comes from dry heat driving Maillard reactions at the surface. If the oven is too cool the top stays pale and the filling heats slowly, while leaving it too long dries the sauce and hardens the crust.

“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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