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Potted Hominy and Meat

A baked casserole of hominy, dried beef, potatoes, carrots, and a thickened milk sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,107 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Potted Hominy and Meat

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the sauce

  1. Make a sauce by heating the fat, then whisking in the flour and milk. Cook until thickened.

Assemble and bake

  1. Dice the potatoes and carrots, then mix them with the hominy and beef.

  2. Layer the mixture in a baking dish with the sauce, ensuring the top layer is sauce.

  3. Bake for 1 hour at 350°F (175°C).

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. Potato + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Corn + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together938 recipes

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

  3. Corn + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together794 recipes

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

  4. Potato + beeftop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  5. Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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 casserole and gives it its main texture.
Corn or rice flour
Thickens the milk into a sauce as it cooks.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding moisture and richness.
Potatoes
Add starch and body, helping the casserole hold together and feel hearty.
Dried beef
Adds a salty, savory flavor throughout the dish.

The step that matters

Cook the sauce until thickened. Flour needs to be heated in the fat and milk long enough for its starch to swell and thicken the liquid. Undercooked sauce stays thin and can leave the casserole watery.

Swap the carrot

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

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, milk, potato, beef. 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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