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Baked Hominy

A baked casserole of hot‑boiled hominy with butter, eggs, milk, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Baked Hominy

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

  1. Stir the hot-boiled hominy in a saucepan until nearly cold.

  2. Add the butter and egg yolks, mixing well.

  3. Slowly add the cold milk and sweeten to taste.

  4. Beat the egg whites until stiff and gently fold them into the hominy mixture.

Bake

  1. Transfer the mixture to deep, buttered dishes.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until nicely browned.

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. Egg + milktop 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 casserole and gives it a soft, starchy body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving a tender texture and flavor.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and bind the mixture as it sets.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the mixture into a pourable batter.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they lighten the mixture and help it rise and set in the oven.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Beaten egg whites trap air that gives the casserole its lift. Stirring them in vigorously knocks out that air, so the dish bakes flatter and denser. Fold gently, keeping the mixture as airy as possible.

“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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