Name: Hominy and Cheese
Ingredients: Crisco (for greasing); hominy; cheese; 1 cup milk; 2 tablespoons Crisco; 2 tablespoons wheat flour; ¼ teaspoon salt; ¼ teaspoon pepper

Why it works: Milk and wheat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Hominy and Cheese

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Grease a baking dish with Crisco.

Assemble and bake

Layer hominy in the dish and sprinkle with cheese.
Repeat layers until all hominy and cheese are used.
In a bowl, mix milk, Crisco, flour, salt, and pepper.
Pour the sauce over the layered hominy and cheese.
Bake for 30 minutes.

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.

Milk + wheattop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,418 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,426 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,373 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Wheat + peppertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together984 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

Hominy: Forms the bulk of the casserole and provides a soft, starchy body.
Cheese: Melts into the sauce, adding richness and savory flavor as it bakes.
Milk: Forms the liquid base of the sauce that coats the layers and bakes them moist.
Wheat flour: Thickens the milk mixture into a sauce as it heats in the oven.

“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.