Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Hominy Waffles
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
In a bowl, combine the cold boiled hominy and sour milk.
Add the beaten eggs, melted butter, and baking soda; mix well.
Gradually add flour until you achieve a thick batter consistency.
Cook
Cook the batter in a waffle iron until golden brown.
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 + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure as they set during cooking.
- Sour milk
- Provides moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that lightens the waffles.
- Flour
- Builds the batter's body and sets the structure of the waffles.
- Melted butter
- Adds fat for richness and helps the waffles brown and release from the iron.
The step that matters
Cooking in the waffle iron until golden brown. A thick batter needs a hot, well-greased iron so the outside browns and crisps while the inside cooks through. Lifting too early can tear the waffle, while overcooking dries it out.
“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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