Skip to main content
Main

Green Corn

A preserved green corn recipe using salt, salicylic acid, water, and butter, stored in jars.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Corn and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,345 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Green Corn

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the brine

  1. Dissolve salt and salicylic acid in hot water.

  2. Place corn in large Mason jars and pour the saltwater over it.

Pack the jars

  1. Boil the corn, cut it off the cobs, and pack it in jars in layers of salt and corn.

  2. Start with a layer of salt, then corn, repeating until jars are full, finishing with salt on top.

  3. Spread melted butter over the top layer and cover with strong perforated paper.

Store and use

  1. Store in a cool cellar.

  2. Soak corn in water overnight before cooking.

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Corn
The main vegetable, which the salt and acid work to preserve over storage.
Salt
Draws moisture out of the corn and inhibits spoilage microbes.
Salicylic acid
Helps inhibit microbial growth so the corn keeps longer in storage.
Melted butter
Forms a fat layer over the top that helps seal out air from the corn below.

The step that matters

Layering the salt and corn. Salt must reach every layer of corn and cover the top, because salt draws out moisture and inhibits spoilage microbes. Any exposed corn is more likely to spoil.

“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.

You might also like

Corn FrittersCorn Fritters203 recipesCream of Corn SoupCream of Corn Soup50 recipesGreen Corn SoupGreen Corn Soup46 recipesCornmeal GruelCornmeal Gruel41 recipes