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 ↓
Succotash
Ingredients
Directions
Boil the shelled beans for 40 minutes.
Cut the corn from the cob.
Add the corn to the beans and boil for 15 minutes.
Stir in the butter and salt, then serve.
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.
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Beans + corntop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,211 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
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Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,345 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
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Beans + buttertop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Shelled beans
- Provides starchy body and the main substance of the dish.
- Sweet corn
- Adds sweetness and tender kernels that soften as they cook.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
The step that matters
Boiling the corn with the beans. Corn cooks quickly, and a long boil can make the kernels tough and dull their sweet flavor. Watch the 15 minutes closely.
Swap the beans
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, butter):
- Lima beansfits better
- Almondfits about as well
- Beansthe original
- Peanutfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against corn, butter. 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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