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Succotash

A stew of corn, lima beans, salt pork, and cream, seasoned with salt, pepper, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and lima beans 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 ↓

Succotash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Shell the lima beans and split the corn kernels in half, scraping out the corn.

Cook

  1. In a pot, cook the beans with a little salt pork and a pinch of baking soda for 30 minutes.

  2. Add the corn and continue to stew until tender, stirring often to prevent burning.

  3. Season with salt and pepper, then stir in the cream 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.

  1. Corn + lima beanstop 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. Lima beans + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together468 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

Lima beans
Provide the main body and starchy texture of the dish.
Green corn
Adds sweetness and tender body as it stews.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor to the cooking liquid.
Baking soda
Raises the pot's alkalinity, helping beans soften during cooking.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky moisture to the finished dish.

The step that matters

Stirring while the corn stews. Corn sugars and starches scorch easily on the bottom of the pot, so frequent stirring prevents burning and keeps the flavor clean.

Swap the lima beans

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, pork, pepper, 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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