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Hominy Croquettes

A fried ball made from boiled hominy, butter, milk, sugar, egg, and coated in breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Hominy Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

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

  2. Gradually stir in 1 cup of milk, mashing the hominy until smooth.

  3. Add 1 teaspoon of white sugar and 1 beaten egg; mix well.

Shape and coat

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

  2. Roll the balls in beaten egg, then coat with bread crumbs.

Fry

  1. Fry in boiling 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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 croquette and gives it a soft, starchy body.
Egg
Binds the mixture and helps the coating adhere and set during frying.
Milk
Adds moisture so the mashed hominy becomes a smooth, pliable mixture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, softening the texture and adding flavor.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

Fry in boiling lard until golden brown. The lard must be hot enough to crisp the crumb coating quickly. If the fat is too cool, the croquettes absorb grease and turn heavy and soggy instead of browning.

“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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