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Hominy Fried

Fried cakes made from boiled hominy, butter, cream, pepper, salt, and flour or cornmeal.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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 ↓

Hominy Fried

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine boiled hominy, butter, pepper, salt, and cream.

  2. Add enough flour or white cornmeal to stiffen the mixture.

  3. Stir until well combined.

Shape and fry

  1. Form the mixture into small cakes.

  2. Fry the cakes in butter on a griddle until golden brown.

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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Boiled hominy
Forms the bulk of the fritters and gives them their main corn body.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the mixture soft and tender inside.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour, and helps the outside brown when frying.
Flour or white cornmeal
Stiffens the mixture so the cakes hold their shape while frying.

The step that matters

Frying the cakes. Cook over moderate heat so the outside turns golden brown while the inside heats through. Too hot a griddle browns the surface before the centre sets, and too cool a griddle leaves the cakes greasy and pale.

“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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