Why it works: Milk and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Hominy Custard
Ingredients
Directions
Make the custard
In a saucepan, combine 1 pint of milk, hominy, and salt.
Boil gently until the mixture thickens.
Add more milk and cook until sufficiently thick.
Stir in sugar and flavoring to taste.
Chill and serve
Pour into a mold and refrigerate until cold.
Serve with jam or stewed fruit.
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 + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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
- Thickens the milk as it cooks and gives the custard its body and grainy texture.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that thickens into the custard.
The step that matters
Boil gently until the mixture thickens. Hominy starch thickens as it cooks in liquid. Boiling too hard or too fast can scorch the milk on the pan bottom and cause it to catch or boil over, so a gentle simmer with frequent stirring gives an even, smooth custard.
“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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