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Granulated Hominy Crescents

Crescent-shaped pastries made from chilled hominy porridge, coated in flour, egg, and cracker meal, then fried and sprinkled with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,675 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Granulated Hominy Crescents

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the porridge

  1. Prepare hominy porridge and pour it into a shallow pan to a depth of ⅓ inch.

  2. Chill until set.

Shape and coat

  1. Turn the chilled porridge onto a board and cut out crescent shapes using a cutter.

  2. Dip each crescent in flour, then in egg, then in cracker meal.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the crescents in deep oil until golden brown.

  2. Drain on paper.

  3. Sprinkle with chopped parsley before serving.

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. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + parsleytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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 thick porridge base that sets firm and holds the crescent shape.
Egg
Binds the flour and cracker meal coating so it adheres to the crescents.
Cracker meal
Forms a crisp outer crust that browns during frying.
Flour
Dries the surface so the egg coating sticks evenly.

The step that matters

Chill the porridge until fully set. If the porridge is not firm, the crescents will tear when cut and lift off the board, and the coating will slide off during frying. Full chilling gives the starch time to set into a solid that holds its shape.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, egg. 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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