Name: Canned Corn
Ingredients: 1 ounce tartaric acid; ½ cup water; 2 quarts sweet corn; soda; sugar; butter; pepper; coarse sea salt

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 ↓

Canned Corn

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the corn

Dissolve tartaric acid in water.
Add 1 teaspoon of the mixture to 2 quarts of sweet corn.
Cook the corn.

Can and finish

While the corn is boiling hot, fill tin cans.
Transfer corn into a colander and rinse with cold water.
Add a little soda and sugar while cooking, then season with butter, pepper, and salt.

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.

Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,324 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,345 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Corn + sugartop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked 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

Sweet corn: Forms the body of the dish and provides its main flavor.
Tartaric acid: Adds acidity that helps the corn keep its flavor and color during canning.
Sugar: Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the tartaric acid.
Butter: Adds fat and richness to the finished corn.

“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.