Why it works: Corn and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,345 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Boiled Green Corn
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Remove the husks and threads from the corn, and break off the stem.
Cook and serve
Boil the corn in lightly salted boiling water until tender.
Serve the corn in a napkin with butter on the side.
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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Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Fresh corn ears
- Provide the sweet kernels that are the main element of the dish.
- Butter
- Adds richness and moisture to the cooked kernels as a side for serving.
The step that matters
Boil until tender. Boiling only until the kernels are tender keeps them juicy and sweet; overcooking toughens the kernel skins and makes the corn starchy and dull.
“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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