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Succotash

A bean and corn dish cooked with butter, salt, pepper, and sweet cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

Prepare

  1. While the beans are boiling, clean the corn by removing the husk and silk.

  2. Cut the corn off the cob, then scrape the cob with the back of a knife.

Cook

  1. Boil the beans in water for nearly 1 hour.

  2. Add the corn to the beans 10 minutes before they are done.

  3. Season with salt, pepper, and butter while boiling.

  4. Ensure there is not too much water in the beans, and do not let them boil dry.

  5. Pour sweet cream over the beans and let it boil briefly.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  4. Lima beans + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together414 recipes

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

  5. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lima beans
Form the bulk of the dish and hold their shape during long simmering.
Fresh corn
Adds sweetness and tender texture that contrasts with the firm beans.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, fatty mouthfeel to the cooking liquid.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and body, thickening the liquid slightly as it boils briefly.

The step that matters

Keep the water level low and do not let the beans boil dry. Too much water dilutes the flavor and too little lets the beans scorch on the pot base. Keeping just enough liquid gives a concentrated, creamy result once the cream goes in.

Swap the lima beans

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

  1. Beansfits about as well
  2. Lima beansthe original
  3. Almondfits about as well
  4. Walnutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, butter, 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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