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Hominy and Meat Croquettes

A fried croquette made from hominy, minced meat, stock, eggs, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Hominy and Meat Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. In a bowl, combine cold boiled hominy with salt, pepper, and onion juice if desired.

  2. Mix in an equal amount of minced meat.

  3. Moisten the mixture with hot stock and stir in the beaten eggs.

  4. Heat the mixture in a shallow saucepan until hot, then set aside to cool.

Shape and fry

  1. Once cooled and firm, shape into croquettes using floured hands.

  2. Roll each croquette in egg, then in breadcrumbs.

  3. Fry in hot Cottolene 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. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + hamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,159 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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 croquette and gives it a soft, starchy body.
Minced ham, lamb, veal, or chicken
Adds savoury flavour and substance to the mixture.
Eggs
Bind the mixture so the croquettes hold their shape when fried.
Hot stock
Moistens the mixture and adds savoury flavour.

The step that matters

Cooling until firm before shaping. The mixture must be cooled and firm before shaping, because a warm, soft mixture will not hold its shape and may crack or fall apart in the hot fat.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, ham, egg, flour):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, ham, egg, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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