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Creamed Succotash

Creamed Succotash is a dish of Lima beans, corn, butter, and cream simmered together.

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

Creamed Succotash

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the Lima beans in enough salted water to cover them until tender.

  2. Add the corn, black pepper, and salt.

  3. Stir in the butter and cream (or milk).

  4. Heat until hot, but do not let it boil.

  5. Serve immediately.

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 + corntop 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

Lima beans
Provide the main body and starchy, tender texture of the dish.
Corn
Adds sweetness and bulk alongside the beans.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the dish.
Cream or rich milk
Adds fat and creaminess, giving the sauce its body.

The step that matters

Heat until hot, but do not let it boil. Once cream boils it can separate and turn grainy or oily, so gentle heating keeps the sauce smooth and cohesive.

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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