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Stewed Hominy

A dish of hominy simmered with butter, cream or milk, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Stewed Hominy

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the hominy

  1. Wash the hominy and place it in a pot with the cold water.

  2. Slowly heat and boil the hominy gently for about 4 hours, or until soft.

  3. Drain the hominy and let it sit to evaporate excess water.

Finish the stew

  1. In a separate pan, melt the butter over low heat.

  2. Gradually stir in the cream or milk until combined.

  3. If using cream, add it to the hot hominy immediately.

  4. If using milk, remove it from heat, stir in the egg yolks, and mix with the hominy.

  5. Serve the hominy immediately after adding the cream or milk.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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 body of the stew as its starch softens during long, gentle cooking.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, rounded flavor.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture and richness, creating the creamy liquid of the stew.
Egg yolks
Add richness and thicken the liquid as they gently set with the warm hominy.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks with the milk. Egg yolks thicken only with gentle heat. Removing the pan from the heat before stirring them in helps prevent the yolks from scrambling or curdling, which would leave the stew grainy.

“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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