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Hominy Croquettes

A fried croquette made from hominy and tomatoes, seasoned with salt and paprika, coated in breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Hominy Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the hominy

  1. Wash the hominy in cold water and drain.

  2. Add the canned tomatoes, salt, and paprika; cook over boiling water until tender.

  3. Stir in the butter and let the mixture cool in a shallow dish.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape the cooled mixture into croquettes, then roll in bread crumbs, dip in beaten egg, and roll in crumbs again.

  2. Fry the croquettes in deep oil 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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Tomato + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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 croquettes, giving them their main body and starchy texture.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the mixture, softening its texture.
Egg
Binds the coated croquettes so the bread crumbs adhere during frying.
Canned tomatoes
Add moisture, acidity, and flavor to the hominy as it cooks until tender.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before shaping. A warm, soft mixture is too loose to hold its shape. Cooling lets the starch firm up so the croquettes keep their form through breading and frying.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, bread, egg):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, bread, egg. 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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