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Green Corn Patties

A fried patty made from grated green corn, flour, butter, egg, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Green Corn Patties

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Grate enough corn to make 1 pint.

  2. In a bowl, combine the grated corn, flour, butter, egg, pepper, and salt.

  3. If the mixture is too thick, add a little milk.

Cook

  1. Heat butter in a pan and fry spoonfuls of the mixture until golden brown.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Corn
Provides the main bulk and sweet flavor of the patties.
Flour
Binds the mixture so the patties hold their shape when fried.
Egg
Binds the mixture and helps the patties set as they cook.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the patties brown in the pan.

The step that matters

Adding milk only if needed. Grated corn releases varying amounts of moisture, so a mixture that is too thick may crack or stay dry, while too much liquid makes patties fall apart. Adding milk a little at a time keeps the batter workable.

“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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