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Corn Oysters

Corn oysters are fried corn fritters made with corn kernels, flour, eggs, salt, cayenne pepper, and fried in butter and lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,324 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Corn Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the corn and batter

  1. Score the corn.

  2. Press out all the grains with the back of a knife.

  3. Beat the egg whites and yolks separately until very light.

  4. Add the yolks to the corn.

  5. Fold in the whites, salt, cayenne, and flour.

  6. Mix lightly and thoroughly.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat 2 tablespoons of mixed lard and butter in a frying pan until very hot.

  2. Ensure the lard is very hot before adding the batter to avoid greasy oysters.

  3. Drop the mixture into the pan by small spoonfuls.

  4. Brown one side.

  5. Turn with a spatula and brown the other side.

  6. Drain on brown paper in the mouth of the oven.

  7. Serve on a cut paper or folded napkin.

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

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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

Eggs
Whites trapped by whipping lighten the batter and help the fritters puff and hold together.
Flour
Starch and protein bind the corn and egg into a batter that holds its shape when fried.
Corn
Supplies the main bulk, sweetness and moisture of the fritters.
Butter and lard
Fat for frying that carries heat and adds richness and golden browning to the surface.

The step that matters

Heat the fat until very hot before adding the batter. Hot fat sets the outside of each spoonful quickly, so it browns rather than soaking up oil. Cool fat lets the batter absorb grease, leaving the oysters heavy and greasy.

“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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