Skip to main content
Main

Sweet-corn Timbales

A baked sweet corn custard in timbale molds, served with tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Corn and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,099 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Sweet-corn Timbales

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the mixture

  1. Beat the eggs until light.

  2. Add salt, oil, bread crumbs, and grated sweet corn to the eggs, then mix well.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into oiled timbale molds dusted with parsley.

  2. Place the molds in a baking tin filled with boiling water.

  3. Cover with oiled paper.

  4. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes.

  5. Serve with tomato sauce.

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. Corn + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,099 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

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

  3. Bread + tomatotop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

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

  4. Corn + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together943 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard-like mixture so the timbales hold their shape when unmolded.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and add body, giving the timbales a softer, firmer texture.
Grated green sweet corn
Supplies the main flavor and moisture, and adds sweetness to the mixture.

The step that matters

Placing the molds in boiling water. A water bath surrounds the molds with gentle, even heat. This keeps the egg mixture from overheating, which would make it curdle, crack or turn rubbery.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, bread, corn, tomato, sauce):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Basilfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, bread, corn, tomato, sauce. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesCorn FrittersCorn Fritters203 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipes