Skip to main content
Main

Savoury Hominy

A baked casserole of cooked hominy, milk, butter, cheese, mustard, salt, and pepper, topped with cheese and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Savoury Hominy

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the mixture

  1. In a saucepan, beat the cooked hominy until smooth.

  2. Add the milk and stir over medium heat until heated through.

  3. Mix in the butter, grated cheese, mustard, salt, and pepper until well combined.

Bake and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to a well-buttered shallow dish.

  2. Top with additional grated cheese and small pieces of butter.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until browned, or place under a broiler until golden.

  4. Serve hot.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  5. Cheese + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,805 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Hominy
Forms the body of the casserole, giving it a soft, starchy texture when beaten smooth.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, loosening the mixture so it bakes evenly.
Grated cheese
Adds richness and flavour, and melts and browns on top.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the top brown as it bakes.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, cheese, pepper):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, cheese, pepper. 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.

You might also like

Macaroni and CheeseMacaroni and Cheese102 recipesCheese MakingCheese Making50 recipesCheese FrittersCheese Fritters34 recipesCheese OmeletteCheese Omelette31 recipes