Name: String Bean Succotash
Ingredients: 2 quarts string beans, cut fine; 6 ears corn, kernels removed; butter, to taste; pepper, to taste; coarse sea salt, to taste; 1 tablespoon flour, moistened; ½ cup sweet milk (or cream)

Why it works: Beans and corn match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,211 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

String Bean Succotash

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the string beans in enough water to cover for 2 hours, ensuring it doesn't boil dry.
Add the corn and boil for an additional 20 minutes.
Season with butter, pepper, and salt.
Before serving, stir in the moistened flour and sweet milk, and let it boil for 10 minutes.

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.

Beans + corntop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,211 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,955 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,324 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Beans + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,733 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

String beans: Provide the main body and tender texture of the dish after long simmering.
Corn: Adds sweetness and bulk, with kernels cooking until tender in the liquid.
Flour: Thickens the cooking liquid into a light, creamy consistency when boiled.
Sweet milk: Adds richness and moisture, mellowing the liquid into a creamier finish.

The step that matters

Keep the beans covered with water while they boil. Long boiling evaporates water quickly, so the beans can scorch or dry out if the pot runs low. Keeping them submerged ensures even, tender cooking and a usable cooking liquid for the final thickening.

Swap the beans

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

Almondfits about as well
Beansthe original
Walnutfits less well
Chestnutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, butter, pepper, flour, 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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String Bean Succotash