Name: Tomato Succotash
Ingredients: 1 pint cooked string beans; 1 small onion, finely minced; 1 pint freshly cooked corn cut from the cob; ½ teaspoon salt; ¼ teaspoon pepper; 5 ripe tomatoes, peeled and cut into small pieces; 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

1 pint cooked string beans
1 small onion, finely minced
1 pint freshly cooked corn cut from the cob
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
5 ripe tomatoes, peeled and cut into small pieces
2 tablespoons butter

Directions

Combine tomatoes, minced onion, salt, and pepper in a pot and cook until the tomatoes are stewed.
Add the cooked string beans and stir often for 20 to 30 minutes.
Once it begins to boil, add the corn and cook for an additional 5 minutes.
Stir in the butter before serving.
If in season, garnish with small mounds of tiny carrots and fresh peas.

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 forms the body of the dish.
String beans: Provide the main bulk and tender-firm texture after long simmering.
Corn: Adds sweetness and a fresh bite once it is added near the end.
Butter: Adds richness and a smooth finish to the stewed vegetables.

The step that matters

Adding the corn near the end. Corn needs only a few minutes of heat because it is already cooked. Overcooking it makes it starchy and dull, so it should go in only once the mixture begins to boil.

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.

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Tomato Succotash