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 Fritters
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
In a bowl, stir together the cold boiled hominy, sweet milk, and salt.
Add the sifted flour and mix well.
Beat the egg white until stiff and fold it into the mixture.
Fry
Drop spoonfuls of the batter into hot lard and fry until golden brown.
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.
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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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
- Hominy
- Provides the main body and corn flavor of the fritter.
- Flour
- Gives the batter structure so the fritters hold their shape while frying.
- Egg white
- Whipped to stiffness, it traps air that lightens the batter as it fries.
- Sweet milk
- Moistens the batter and loosens it to a droppable consistency.
The step that matters
Folding in the stiff egg white. Folding gently keeps the air beaten into the egg white. Stirring hard would deflate it, leaving the fritters denser and less light.
“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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