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Summer Succotash

A bean and corn stew with salt pork, butter or cream, seasoned with pepper and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Summer Succotash

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the beans

  1. Cover cranberry beans with cold water and boil for 1 to 1½ hours.

  2. When beans are half cooked, add sweet corn.

  3. After 15 minutes, add boiled salt pork.

Finish and serve

  1. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  2. Stir in butter or cream.

  3. If too dry, add a little milk or water; if too wet, pour off excess liquid before adding cream.

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. Beans + corntop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,211 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Cranberry + beanstop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together55 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

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

  4. Corn + porktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,069 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

What each ingredient does

Cranberry beans
Provide the main body and starchy, creamy texture of the dish.
Sweet corn
Adds sweetness and bright pops of texture alongside the beans.
Salt pork
Contributes savory fat and flavor that seasons the whole dish.
Butter or cream
Adds richness, fat and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the finished dish.

The step that matters

Adjusting the moisture before adding cream. Starchy beans keep absorbing and releasing liquid as they stand, so the dish can turn dry or watery. Checking consistency and pouring off excess liquid before adding cream keeps the cream from thinning out and the texture balanced.

Swap the cranberry

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Cherryfits about as well
  4. Cranberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, corn, pork, pepper, butter, 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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