Name: Green Corn Fritters
Ingredients: 4 cups fresh corn, cut from the cob; 1 cup all-purpose flour; 2 large eggs, beaten; milk, as needed to make a batter; 2 tablespoons butter, for frying

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 Fritters

Ingredients

4 cups fresh corn, cut from the cob
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 large eggs, beaten
milk, as needed to make a batter
2 tablespoons butter, for frying

Directions

Prepare the batter

Cut the corn from the cob and scrape off any remaining milk.
In a bowl, combine the corn, flour, and beaten eggs.
Add enough milk to create a batter.

Fry

Heat butter in a frying pan.
Drop a tablespoon of batter into the pan and fry until both sides are nicely browned.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,955 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,165 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,345 recipes

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

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

Fresh corn: Provides the main bulk, sweetness and tender texture of the fritters.
All-purpose flour: Gives the batter structure so the fritters hold together when fried.
Eggs: Bind the corn and flour together and help set the fritters as they cook.
Milk: Adds moisture so the flour and eggs form a pourable batter that spreads in the pan.
Butter: Conducts heat for frying and adds richness and browning to the outside.

The step that matters

Frying the batter. Frying in hot butter sets the outside quickly and drives browning through the Maillard reaction. If the pan is too cool, the fritters absorb fat, turn greasy and stay pale and wet inside.

“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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Green Corn Fritters