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Corn Oysters

Fried cakes made from corn, egg, celery salt, cream, and cracker crumbs, seasoned with pepper and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Corn Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, combine the corn, beaten egg, celery salt, cream, black pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  2. Mix in enough fine cracker crumbs to form a stiff mixture.

  3. Shape the mixture into small cakes.

Fry

  1. Fry the cakes in a mixture of butter and lard until deep 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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Corn + celerytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together920 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

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

  5. 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

Egg
Binds the corn and crumbs so the mixture holds its shape when fried.
Fine cracker crumbs
Absorb moisture from the corn and egg to form a stiff mixture that can be shaped.
Corn
Provides the main bulk and sweet flavor of the fritters.
Butter and lard
Fat for frying, conducting heat and promoting browning on the outside of the cakes.

The step that matters

Frying until deep brown. The cakes need enough hot fat to brown the outside quickly, forming a crisp crust before the moist interior overcooks. Fat that is too cool lets the cakes soak up oil and turn greasy.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, egg, cream, pepper, butter):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, egg, cream, pepper, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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