Name: Southern Corn Cakes
Ingredients: 1 quart sweet milk; 5 cups white corn meal; 1 teaspoon salt; 6 eggs, well beaten

Why it works: Milk and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Southern Corn Cakes

Ingredients

1 quart sweet milk
5 cups white corn meal
1 teaspoon salt
6 eggs, well beaten

Directions

In a large bowl, combine the sweet milk, white corn meal, and salt.
Add the well beaten eggs and mix until smooth.
The batter should be quite thin.

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 + corntop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,955 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Corn + eggtop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,484 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).