Name: Corn Oysters
Ingredients: 1 cup sweet corn (drained); ½ cup flour or ½ cup breadcrumbs; 1 teaspoon pepper; 1 well-beaten egg; ½ teaspoon salt (or more, to taste)

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 ↓

Corn Oysters

Ingredients

1 cup sweet corn (drained)
½ cup flour or ½ cup breadcrumbs
1 teaspoon pepper
1 well-beaten egg
½ teaspoon salt (or more, to taste)

Directions

Mix the ingredients in the order given.
Shape the mixture to imitate oysters.
Cook on a well-greased griddle, browning on one side, then turn and brown on the other.
Alternatively, bake the mixture, beating the yolk and white separately before adding them.

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.

Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,324 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,165 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together50,459 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Corn + eggtop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,484 recipes

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

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Egg: Binds the mixture so the fritters hold their shape while cooking.
Flour or breadcrumbs: Absorbs moisture and gives the mixture body so it can be shaped.
Sweet corn: Provides the main flavour and bulk of the fritters.

“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.