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Hominy Croquettes

Fried croquettes made from hominy, milk, butter, and flour, coated in beaten egg and bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Hominy Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the hominy base

  1. Pour boiling water over the hominy, stir, cover, and boil for 20 minutes until the water is absorbed and the hominy is stiff.

  2. Add milk and salt, stir thoroughly, cover, and let it stand for 10 minutes, cooking slowly if necessary.

  3. Ensure the mixture is a thick batter, but not too thick to drop.

  4. Beat in the butter.

  5. Pour the hominy into a shallow pan.

  6. Let the mixture cool.

Shape and fry

  1. Flour your hands.

  2. Take a piece the size of a small egg and roll it into a ball.

  3. Shape the ball into a croquette on a floured surface.

  4. Roll the croquette in beaten egg.

  5. Roll the croquette in grated bread.

  6. Fry the croquette in deep lard until golden brown.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

Hominy
Forms the bulk of the croquette and sets into a firm, stiff mass as it cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and a soft, tender texture to the cooked hominy.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness so the hominy forms a smooth, thick batter.
Beaten egg
Binds the coating so the bread crumbs adhere and form a crisp shell.

The step that matters

Ensure the mixture is a thick batter, but not too thick to drop.. If the batter is too stiff, the croquettes crack and crumble when shaped; if too thin, they lose shape and absorb excess fat. Cooling before shaping also firms the mixture so it holds its form.

“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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