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Succotash

A stew of lima beans, sweet corn, butter, cream, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lima beans and beans match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 156 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Succotash

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the beans and corn

  1. Put the Lima beans in a pot with cold water, covering them.

  2. Boil the beans for 30 to 45 minutes.

  3. Scrape the kernels from the sweet corn and add the cobs to the pot.

  4. Boil for another 15 minutes after adding the corn kernels.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the cobs, then season with salt, pepper, butter, and cream.

  2. Serve hot.

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 + beanstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together156 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Corn + beanstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,211 recipes

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

  3. Lima beans + corntop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together222 recipes

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

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lima beans
Provide the starchy, tender body that makes up most of the dish.
Sweet corn
Adds natural sweetness and pops of tender texture among the beans.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the cooking liquid.
Butter
Adds fat for richer flavor and a glossy finish.

The step that matters

Removing the cobs before seasoning. Cobs left in the pot keep releasing starch and corn flavor, which can make the dish cloudy and uneven. Taking them out before adding cream and butter keeps the texture clean and the seasoning balanced.

“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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