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Succotash

Succotash is a stew of lima beans, corn, salt, pepper, and cream or milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lima beans and corn work together. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 222 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Succotash

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the beans

  1. Boil the shelled lima beans in water for 2 hours.

  2. While the beans are cooking, cut the corn from the cobs.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the corn to the beans and cook for an additional 30 minutes.

  2. Season with salt and pepper, then stir in the cream or milk before serving.

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. Lima beans + corntop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together222 recipes

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

  2. Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

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

  3. Lima beans + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together468 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Lima beans + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together152 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

Pepper and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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

Lima beans
Provide the main body and starchy, tender texture of the dish.
Corn
Adds sweetness and tender kernels that soften slightly during simmering.
Cream or milk
Adds fat and richness, giving the dish a smoother, creamier finish.

The step that matters

Adding the cream or milk. Cream or milk should be stirred in near the end, off the boil, because prolonged high heat can cause dairy to separate, curdle, or scorch on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the lima beans

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

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Lima beansthe original
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Walnutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, pepper, cream. 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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