Name: Corn Croquettes
Ingredients: 1 can corn; 2 eggs; 4 tablespoons cream or milk; 2 dozen soda crackers, crushed; Salt to taste; Lard for frying

Why it works: Egg and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 24% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 42,166 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Corn Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

In a bowl, mix the corn, eggs, cream or milk, crushed soda crackers, and salt until well combined.
Shape the mixture into oblong cakes using floured hands.

Fry and serve

Heat lard in a pan over medium‑high heat and fry the cakes until golden brown.
Serve on a dish with a 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.

Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together42,166 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Corn + creamtop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,532 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
Corn + eggtop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,484 recipes

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

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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: Bind the mixture so the cakes hold their shape while frying.
Soda crackers: Absorb moisture and add body so the mixture can be shaped.
Cream or milk: Adds moisture that keeps the inside of the cakes tender.
Corn: Provides the main body and sweet flavor of the cakes.

The step that matters

Frying the cakes until golden brown. Fry over medium‑high heat only until the surface browns, since the browning comes from the Maillard reaction on the outside. Cooking too hot too long can scorch the outside before the centre is set, while too little heat leaves the cakes greasy and pale.

“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.