Skip to main content
Main

String Bean Succotash

A stew of string beans and corn seasoned with butter, pepper, and sea salt, thickened with flour and sweet milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

String Bean Succotash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. String and cut the beans finely.

  2. Boil the beans in enough water to cover for 2 hours.

  3. Cut the corn from the ears.

  4. Add the corn to the beans.

  5. Boil for 20 minutes.

Season and thicken

  1. Season with butter, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  2. Mix 1 tablespoon of flour with ½ cup of sweet milk, then add the mixture to the pot.

  3. Boil for 10 minutes.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

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

  5. Beans + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,733 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

String beans
Form the main body of the dish and soften over long simmering.
Corn
Adds sweetness and tender kernels that complement the beans.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded flavor to the finished dish.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid as it boils, giving the dish body.
Sweet milk or cream
Adds moisture and richness, combining with the flour to form a thickened liquid.

The step that matters

Adding the flour and milk mixture. Flour mixed directly into hot liquid can clump. Whisking it first into the milk until smooth lets it disperse evenly, so the thickening stays uniform as the dish boils.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Almondfits about as well
  2. Beansthe original
  3. Walnutfits less well
  4. Chestnutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, butter, pepper, flour, 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.

More succotash recipes

Curried 3 See all 78 →

You might also like

Corn FrittersCorn Fritters203 recipesCream of Corn SoupCream of Corn Soup50 recipesGreen Corn SoupGreen Corn Soup46 recipesCornmeal GruelCornmeal Gruel41 recipes