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New England Succotash

A New England dish of lima beans, corn, pickled pork, sugar, butter, and pepper 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 ↓

New England Succotash

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cover the pickled pork with water and parboil it.

  2. Add the beans and cook until they burst.

  3. Stir in the corn, sugar, butter, and pepper.

  4. Watch carefully to prevent scorching after adding the corn.

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. 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. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Lima beans
Form the bulk of the dish and break down to give it a thick, creamy body.
Corn
Adds sweetness and tender kernels that contrast with the soft beans.
Pickled pork
Lends salty, savory flavor to the cooking liquid that seasons the beans.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, rounding out the flavor and mouthfeel.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the salty pork and the starchy corn.

The step that matters

Watch carefully after adding the corn. Corn contains sugars and starches that can scorch on the bottom of the pot once the mixture is thick and the liquid has reduced. Stirring and monitoring heat prevents burnt flavor.

Swap the lima beans

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

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

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