Why it works: Corn and pork are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,069 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Hoe Cake
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the batter
Pour enough boiling water or milk over the corn meal to moisten it.
Let the mixture stand for at least an hour.
Cook
Heat a frying pan and grease it with lard or pork fat.
Spoon three tablespoons of the mixture onto the hot frying pan and form it into a round cake about ½ inch thick.
Cook until brown, then turn it over and cook the other side.
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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Corn + porktop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,069 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Corn + milktop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Milk + porktop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,386 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Corn meal
- Forms the body of the cake, setting into a firm, grainy crumb when cooked.
- Boiling water or milk
- Moistens the corn meal so it can hydrate and form a workable batter.
- Lard or pork fat
- Greases the pan and fries the outside, promoting browning and a crisp surface.
The step that matters
Let the mixture stand for at least an hour. Standing lets the corn meal fully absorb the liquid, softening the grains. A dry or under-rested batter will crack and fall apart when shaped and fried.
“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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