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Stewed Corn

Stewed corn is a simple dish of sweet corn simmered with water, milk or cream, butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Stewed Corn

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the corn

  1. Remove the kernels from the corn using a large sharp knife.

  2. Scrape the cob to extract any remaining corn.

  3. Place the corn in a saucepan with enough water to prevent burning.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil for about 20 minutes.

  2. Add the milk or cream, cold butter, salt, and pepper.

  3. Boil for an additional 10 minutes.

  4. Serve hot in a vegetable dish.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

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

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

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

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Sweet corn
Forms the main body of the dish and supplies its sweet flavor.
Milk or cream
Adds moisture and richness, giving the corn a creamy texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Adding the milk or cream and cold butter. Once dairy is added, keep the heat gentle and the mixture from a hard boil, since vigorous boiling can cause milk to scorch on the pan base or separate, leaving the sauce grainy rather than smooth.

“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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