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Boiled Coarse Hominy

A simple boiled hominy dish seasoned with salt, white pepper, butter, and hot milk or cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Boiled Coarse Hominy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the hominy in cold water overnight.

Cook

  1. In the morning, drain the water and place the hominy in a saucepan with fresh water.

  2. Cook slowly, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon.

  3. Season with salt, then drain in a colander.

Finish

  1. Return the hominy to the saucepan, season with salt and white pepper, and add butter.

  2. Stir until the butter melts, then moisten with hot milk or cream.

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. White pepper + buttertop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. White pepper + milktop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,304 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Coarse hominy
Forms the bulk of the dish, softening through soaking and slow cooking into a tender base.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel as it melts into the hot hominy.
Milk or cream
Adds moisture and softness, loosening the hominy and giving it a creamier texture.

The step that matters

Cook slowly, stirring occasionally. Gentle heat lets the tough hominy kernels soften evenly through without breaking apart or scorching on the bottom of the pan. Occasional stirring prevents sticking and uneven cooking.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk. 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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