Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Hominy Griddle Cakes with Sour Milk
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the batter
Warm the cooked hominy if not freshly cooked.
Dissolve the baking soda in cold water and stir into the sour milk.
Add the flour, salt, and hominy, and beat well.
Incorporate the well-beaten egg.
Cook
Fry in small cakes on a hot griddle.
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 + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
- Cooked hominy
- Provides body and a coarse, tender texture to the cakes.
- Sour milk
- Its acidity reacts with the baking soda and adds tang and tenderness.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to release gas that lifts the batter.
- Flour
- Gives the batter structure so the cakes hold their shape when fried.
- Egg
- Binds the batter and adds richness and structure as it sets.
The step that matters
Fry on a hot griddle. Frying on a hot griddle sets the outside of each cake quickly, trapping the gas released by the baking soda so the cakes rise and brown rather than spreading flat and turning soggy.
“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.
You might also like
Tomato Soup526 recipes
Brown Bread461 recipes
Mutton Broth292 recipes
Yorkshire Pudding264 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.