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
Grate enough corn to make 1 pint.
Make the batter
In a bowl, combine the grated corn, flour, butter, egg, pepper, and salt.
If the mixture is too thick, add a little milk.
Fry and serve
Heat butter in a pan and fry spoonfuls of the mixture until golden brown.
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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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Corn + milktop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,324 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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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).
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 flavour of the patties.
- All-purpose flour
- Binds the grated corn so the patties hold together when fried.
- Butter
- Adds richness and helps the patties brown in the pan.
- Egg
- Binds the mixture and helps set the patties as they cook.
The step that matters
Frying the spoonfuls of mixture. If the mixture is too thick or the pan is not hot enough, the patties may stay doughy inside or burn outside before they set. Milk can loosen a thick batter so it spreads and cooks evenly.
“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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