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Hominy and Bean Cakes

A savory cake made from hominy, beans, and a white sauce, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 26,984 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Hominy and Bean Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the white sauce

  1. Make a white sauce by melting the fat in a saucepan.

  2. Blend in the cornstarch, salt, and cayenne pepper.

  3. Add the milk and cook until thickened.

Form and brown the cakes

  1. Grind the hominy and beans through a food chopper.

  2. Mix the ground hominy and beans with the white sauce.

  3. Form the mixture into cakes.

  4. Brown the cakes in a little fat over medium heat.

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. Milk + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26,984 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  2. Kidney beans + peppertop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together718 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Milk + kidney beanstop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Boiled coarse hominy
Provides the bulk and starchy body that holds the cakes together.
Red kidney beans
Add protein-rich bulk and a firmer, mealy texture to the cakes.
Milk
Combines with the fat and cornstarch to form the thickened white sauce that binds the mixture.
Cornstarch
Thickens the white sauce so it sets the mixture and helps the cakes hold their shape.
Fat
Enriches the white sauce and browns the cakes in the pan.

The step that matters

Cook the white sauce until thickened. Cornstarch must be cooked with the liquid until it gelatinizes; undercooked starch leaves a raw, pasty taste and a sauce too thin to bind the hominy and beans into cakes that hold their shape.

Swap the kidney beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, pepper):

  1. Cocoafits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Walnutfits better
  4. Kidney beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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