Why it works: Corn and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 25% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,532 recipes. Both carry 2-heptanol, which smells bitter, floral. The science ↓
Salted Corn
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the corn
Boil corn on the cob for 10 minutes.
Remove kernels from the cob.
For every 3 cups of corn, add 1 cup of coarse sea salt.
Ferment and store
Place corn in a stone jar and cover with double cheesecloth.
Put a plate on top of the jar and weigh it down.
Let it cool completely before covering.
Serve
When ready to serve, take out enough corn for a meal.
Place corn in a fine wire sieve lined with cheesecloth.
Rinse with cold water until fresh enough to eat.
Cook the corn with cream.
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.
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Corn + creamtop 25% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Corn
- Provides the bulk of the dish and its sweet, starchy flavour once salted and cooked.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws moisture out of the corn and preserves it while it is stored.
- Cream
- Adds richness and fat, softening the salted corn when cooked.
The step that matters
Adding the salt in the right ratio. Salt draws water out of the kernels and preserves them. Too little salt lets the corn spoil, while too much leaves it unpleasantly salty even after rinsing. Measure by volume: 1 cup of salt for every 3 cups of corn.
“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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