Why it works: Pork and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,069 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Winter Succotash
Ingredients
Directions
Boil the salt pork for two hours.
Cook the beans in cold water for 1 hour and 15 minutes, adding another ½ cup of water after 20 minutes.
Add the boiled salt pork and hot sweet corn to the beans.
Stir in the sugar, butter rolled in flour, salt, and pepper.
Let the mixture simmer for 30 minutes.
Serve hot.
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.
-
Pork + corntop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,069 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
-
Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,324 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
-
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,165 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,933 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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
More succotash recipes
You might also like
The free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.
Corn Fritters203 recipes
Pork Cake107 recipes
Roast Pork82 recipes
Cream of Corn Soup50 recipes