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Fried Corn

A simple dish of corn kernels sautéed with butter, salt, pepper, and a little water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Fried Corn

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, combine the corn, butter, salt, and pepper.

  2. Add a small amount of water to prevent sticking.

  3. Cook over medium heat for 30 minutes, shaking the pan occasionally to prevent burning.

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

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

  3. 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

Corn
Provides the main bulk and natural sweetness, and its starch thickens slightly as it cooks.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a rounded flavor, and helps coat the kernels in the pan.

The step that matters

Cooking over medium heat with water and shaking. Corn's natural sugars and starches scorch on the hot pan bottom. The small amount of water and regular shaking keep the corn from sticking and burning during the 30 minutes.

“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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