Name: Tomato Succotash
Ingredients: 1 pint cooked string beans; 1 small onion, finely minced; 1 pint freshly cooked corn, cut from the cob; 1½ teaspoons salt; ¼ teaspoon pepper; 5 ripe tomatoes; 2 tablespoons butter

Why it works: Beans and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,713 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomato Succotash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Peel the tomatoes and cut them into small pieces.

Make the succotash

Put the tomatoes in a pot with the minced onion, salt, and pepper to stew.
Add the string beans and cook for 20 to 30 minutes, stirring often.
Once cooked, add the corn and boil for 5 minutes.
Stir in the butter 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.

Beans + tomatotop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,713 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beans + corntop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,211 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Corn + tomatotop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,099 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Beans + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,242 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 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

Tomatoes: Break down into a juicy base that gives the succotash its body and fresh acidity.
String beans: Provide the main vegetable bulk and a tender, firm bite after long cooking.
Corn: Adds sweetness and pops of texture that contrast with the softer beans and tomatoes.
Butter: Adds richness and a smooth, glossy finish to the vegetables.

Swap the onion

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

Capsicumfits better
Okrafits better
Potatofits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, corn, pepper, tomato, 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.