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Succotash

Succotash is a stew of green corn and lima beans seasoned with salt, pepper, butter, and optional cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and lima beans 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 the corn

  1. While the beans are boiling, clean the corn from husk and silk, then cut it off the cob.

  2. Scrape the cob gently with the back of a knife to extract more corn.

Cook

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

  2. Ensure there is enough water in the beans and do not let them boil dry.

  3. Add the corn to the beans 20 minutes before they are done.

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

  5. Add a little cream for improved flavor, if desired.

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. Corn + lima beanstop 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

Green corn
Provides the sweet, tender kernels that form the body of the dish.
Lima beans
Supply starchy, creamy texture that holds the dish together.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor through the beans and corn.

The step that matters

Keep enough water in the beans. If the pot boils dry, the beans scorch and stick to the bottom and the dish turns bitter and burnt. Keeping enough liquid lets the beans cook evenly and gently.

Swap the lima beans

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