Why it works: Milk and butter 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
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the corn
Clean the corn by removing the silk.
Cut off the edges of the kernels with a sharp knife and scrape the remainder off.
Cook and finish
Place the corn in a pot with 2 cups of water.
Cook until the corn is tender, being careful not to burn it.
Thin the mixture with sweet milk, then season with salt and pepper.
Add butter to taste.
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.
-
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
-
Corn + milktop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
-
Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,324 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
-
Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,345 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
-
Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Green corn
- Forms the main body of the dish, providing its sweet flavor and bulk.
- Water
- Helps the corn cook gently and soften until tender.
- Sweet milk
- Thins the cooked corn to a looser, creamier consistency.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, rounding out the flavor and mouthfeel.
The step that matters
Cook until the corn is tender, being careful not to burn it.. Corn sugars and starches scorch easily on direct heat, which gives a bitter, burnt taste. Stirring and keeping the heat moderate while the corn softens protects its sweetness.
“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.
More green corn recipes
You might also like
Corn Fritters203 recipes
Cream of Corn Soup50 recipes
Cornmeal Gruel41 recipes
Cornmeal Pudding32 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.