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Baltimore Samp

A hominy dish cooked slowly in water, seasoned with salt, served with cream, sugar, cheese, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Baltimore Samp

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the hominy

  1. Cover the pearl hominy with boiling water and cook for 5 to 6 hours, adding more boiling water as needed.

  2. Drain and cover with more boiling water; cook over low heat until tender, adding water to prevent scorching.

Serve

  1. Once done, season with coarse sea salt; serve with cream and sugar.

  2. For a vegetable dish, reheat 2 cups of hominy in 2 cups of cream sauce, adding 3 tablespoons of grated cheese or ½ tablespoon of finely chopped parsley.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Cream + cheesetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Sauce + cheesetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,987 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Pearl hominy
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender and soft as it cooks slowly in water.
Cream sauce
Adds moisture and richness when the hominy is reheated for the vegetable version.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, fatty mouthfeel when served with the hominy.

The step that matters

Keep the hominy covered with water while it cooks. Hominy can scorch and stick to the pot as the water evaporates over long cooking. Adding boiling water as needed keeps the grains submerged and cooking evenly, so they become tender rather than dry or burnt on the bottom.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, sugar, sauce, cheese):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar, sauce, cheese. 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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