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Corn Oysters

A fried corn batter fritter made with fresh or canned corn, sweet cream, butter, eggs, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Corn Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. If using fresh corn, grate it.

  2. If using canned corn, drain it.

  3. In a bowl, mix the corn, sweet cream, melted butter, salt, pepper, and eggs.

  4. Add flour gradually until the batter is thick enough to drop from a spoon but not stiff.

Fry and drain

  1. Heat lard in a pan until very hot.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the batter into the hot lard and fry until brown, turning once.

  3. Remove the cooked corn oysters and place them on a wire rack to drain excess fat.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Corn + walnuttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together349 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Walnut + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and help it set firm when fried.
Flour
Thickens the batter so it holds its shape in the hot fat.
Sweet cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the batter's texture.
Corn
Provides the main bulk, sweetness and flavor of the fritters.

The step that matters

Frying the batter in very hot lard. If the lard is not hot enough, the batter absorbs more fat and turns greasy instead of forming a crisp, browned crust. Dropping the batter into properly hot fat sets the outside quickly so the inside stays tender.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, cream, butter, pepper, egg, flour):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Beansfits about as well
  3. Walnutthe original
  4. Chestnutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, cream, butter, pepper, egg, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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