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Hominy Croquettes

Hominy croquettes are fried balls made from boiled hominy, butter, milk, sugar, salt, egg, and cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. In a bowl, combine cold boiled hominy and melted butter.

  2. Gradually stir in milk until a soft, light paste forms.

  3. Add white sugar, salt, and the beaten egg; mix well.

Shape and fry

  1. With floured hands, shape the mixture into oval balls.

  2. Dip each ball in beaten egg, then roll in cracker crumbs.

  3. Fry in hot lard 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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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 croquettes and gives them a tender, starchy body.
Milk
Moistens the hominy into a soft paste that holds its shape.
Egg
Binds the mixture and helps the coating adhere before frying.
Butter
Adds richness and a mellow flavor to the mixture.

The step that matters

Gradually stir in milk. Adding the milk slowly lets the hominy absorb it evenly, giving a soft but workable paste. Too much liquid at once can make the balls too loose to shape and hold together in the hot fat.

“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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