Why it works: Corn and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,324 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Green Corn
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the corn
Select young, full-grown sugar corn. Test by pressing it; if good, milk will escape.
Strip off the outer leaves, turn back the inner ones, and remove all silk.
Cover the ear with the thin husk and place in boiling salted water.
Cook
Boil covered for 20 to 30 minutes.
Finish and serve
Cut off the stalks close to the cob and rub off remaining husks with a napkin.
Serve steaming hot with butter, salt, and pepper.
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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Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,324 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Sugar + corntop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together7,168 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Young evergreen sugar corn
- Provides the sweet kernels, which become tender and juicy when boiled in their husk.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat that melts over the hot corn, carrying flavor.
The step that matters
Select young, full-grown sugar corn. Sugars in sweet corn begin turning to starch soon after picking, so young, freshly harvested ears taste sweeter and cook up tender rather than starchy.
“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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