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Southern Succotash

A Southern dish of corn, lima beans, and salt pork simmered with sugar and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Southern Succotash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the corn stock

  1. Cut the corn carefully from the cob.

  2. Boil the cobs in water for 20 minutes.

  3. Remove the cobs and strain the liquid over the cut corn.

Simmer

  1. Add the lima beans and salt pork cut into half-inch cubes.

  2. Stir in the sugar and season with salt and pepper.

  3. Let simmer slowly for 1 hour until the moisture evaporates to the desired consistency.

  4. For a richer flavor, add 2 to 3 tablespoons of hot cream just before serving.

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. Corn + porktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,069 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Lima beans + porktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together139 recipes

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

  5. Lima beans + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together468 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

Green corn
Provides the main sweet flavor and bulk of the dish.
Green lima beans
Add starchy body and a firm, buttery texture to the stew.
Salt pork
Renders fat and savory flavor into the simmering liquid.
Sugar
Enhances the natural sweetness of the fresh corn.

The step that matters

Slow simmer until the moisture evaporates. Simmering gently lets the liquid reduce and thicken without scorching the sugars in the corn or toughening the beans. Too hot a heat can burn the bottom and make the texture uneven.

Swap the lima beans

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

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Sesamefits about as well
  3. Peanutfits about as well
  4. Lima beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, sugar, pepper, pork. 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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