Skip to main content
Main

Hominy Croquettes

A fried snack of hominy mixed with butter, milk, sugar, and egg, coated in cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Hominy Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

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

  2. Gradually stir in milk until a soft, light paste forms.

  3. Add white sugar, salt, and a well-beaten egg; mix well.

Shape and coat

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

  2. Dip each ball in beaten egg, then roll in cracker crumbs.

Fry

  1. Fry in hot 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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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
Provides the bulk and starchy body that the croquette mixture holds together around.
Milk
Moistens the hominy into a soft paste that stays tender inside after frying.
Egg
Binds the mixture so the balls keep their shape, and the beaten egg helps crumbs stick.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that softens the paste and adds flavor.
White sugar
Adds mild sweetness that balances the savory base and aids browning.

The step that matters

Frying in hot lard until golden brown. If the lard is not hot enough, the coated croquettes absorb grease and turn heavy, while the crumb coating may not set and brown properly. Hot fat seals the outside quickly.

“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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes