Name: Succotash
Ingredients: 2 ears of fresh Indian corn; 2 cups of cooked beans; salt to taste; butter to taste

Why it works: Corn and beans 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 ↓

Succotash

Ingredients

2 ears of fresh Indian corn
2 cups of cooked beans
salt to taste
butter to taste

Directions

Remove the kernels from the ears of corn.
In a pot, combine the corn kernels and cooked beans.
Add salt and butter to taste.
Cook over medium heat until heated through, stirring occasionally.

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.

Corn + beanstop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,211 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,345 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Beans + buttertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,799 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh indian corn: Provides the sweet, tender kernels that form the main body of the dish.
Cooked beans: Add starch and a firm, hearty texture that balances the sweet corn.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour and giving the kernels a smooth coating.