Why it works: Flour and butter 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 ↓
Corn Fritters
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Combine the corn, flour, egg, and baking powder in a bowl to make a batter.
Fry
Melt the butter in a skillet over medium heat.
Drop spoonfuls of the batter into the melted butter.
Fry until the fritters are browned on both sides.
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.
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Flour + buttertop 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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Flour + eggtop 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).
Flour and butter 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
- Sweet corn
- Provides the main body and sweet flavour of the fritters.
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the batter so the fritters hold together when fried.
- Egg
- Binds the batter and helps set the fritters as they cook.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas during cooking so the fritters rise and become lighter.
- Butter
- Adds richness and helps the fritters brown in the skillet.
The step that matters
Frying over medium heat. The batter needs enough heat to brown and set on the outside before the centre is cooked through. Too little heat leaves the fritters greasy and pale, while too much browns the outside before the inside sets.
“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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