Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Fine Hominy
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Soak the hominy overnight.
Bring 6 quarts of lightly salted boiling water to a boil in a saucepan.
Cook the mush
Slowly add the soaked hominy while stirring with a wooden spoon.
Let it boil slowly, stirring occasionally, until it resembles mush.
If too thick, add a little more hot water or milk.
Serve
Serve with butter, cream, and sugar.
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.
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Hominy
- Its starch softens and thickens into the mush as it boils.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness to the mush at serving.
- Cream
- Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture at serving.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness to balance the mild, salty mush.
The step that matters
Adding the hominy slowly while stirring. Dropping soaked hominy in all at once can clump and cook unevenly. Adding it gradually while stirring disperses the pieces so the starch releases and thickens evenly.
“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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