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Dessert

Hominy Fritters

Hominy fritters are small, fried cakes made from boiled hominy, sugar, cream, eggs, baking soda, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 ↓

Hominy Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Rub the sugar and salt into the hominy.

  2. Wet the mixture with cream until smooth.

  3. Beat in the whipped eggs.

  4. Dissolve the baking soda in a little vinegar and mix it in last.

Fry and serve

  1. Drop spoonfuls into boiling oil and fry quickly.

  2. Drain on a hot colander.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Cream + vinegartop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,064 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 bulk of the fritter, giving body and a starchy, tender crumb.
Eggs
Bind the batter and set during frying to hold the fritter together.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, loosening the mixture to a smooth batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the vinegar to produce gas that lightens the batter as it fries.

The step that matters

Adding the baking soda and vinegar last. Baking soda reacts with the acid in vinegar to release carbon dioxide bubbles. If mixed in early or left to stand, the gas escapes before frying, and the fritters turn out dense. Mixing it in last and frying promptly keeps the lift.

“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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