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Eggs in Hominy Cases

A baked dish of eggs set in a hominy base, seasoned with butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Eggs in Hominy Cases

6 rings
Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the hominy

  1. Soak the hominy in 1 quart of water for 12 hours.

  2. Pour the hominy and water into a stewpan and add a little salt.

  3. Simmer gently for 1 hour, stirring frequently.

  4. Beat in 1 ounce of butter.

Shape the rings

  1. Spread the mixture about ¾ inch thick on a buttered baking sheet and smooth it with a knife dipped in hot water.

  2. Let the mixture firm for 30 minutes.

  3. Dip a 3-inch cutter in hot water, cut out 6 rounds from the mixture, and stamp out the centers with a smaller cutter.

  4. Place the rings on a buttered dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Break an egg into each ring.

  2. Add a small piece of butter on top of each egg.

  3. Sprinkle with pepper and salt.

  4. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 5 minutes.

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. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

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

Egg and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 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 firm, sliceable base that holds the egg in each ring.
Eggs
Set in the rings to form the soft, cooked centre of each cup.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the hominy and the eggs.

The step that matters

Simmering the hominy. Hominy must cook long enough to soften fully and thicken into a smooth, firm mass; if it is undercooked or too wet it will not hold its shape when cut into rings.

“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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