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Hominy Fritters

Hominy fritters are fried cakes made from boiled hominy, eggs, flour, salt, baking powder, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Flour and milk 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 Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine hot boiled hominy, eggs, salt, and flour.

  2. Thin the mixture with a little cold milk until smooth.

  3. Once cool, stir in baking powder until well mixed.

Fry

  1. Drop tablespoons of the mixture into hot fat.

  2. Fry 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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Flour and milk 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

Hominy
Forms the bulk of the fritter, giving it a substantial, slightly starchy body.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together and help set the fritters as they cook.
Flour
Adds body and helps hold the batter together during frying.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lightens the batter so the fritters puff slightly.

The step that matters

Stir in baking powder after the mixture cools. Baking powder starts releasing gas once wet and can lose lifting power if left standing or stirred in while the batter is very hot. Adding it once cool and mixing just until combined helps the fritters rise evenly when they hit the hot fat.

“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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