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Succotash

Succotash is a stew of sweet corn, white beans, salted pork, butter, sugar, milk, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and beans match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,211 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Succotash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the corn and beans overnight in separate bowls of warm water.

  2. Wash the salted pork in cold water.

Cook

  1. Place the pork in a saucepan with 2 quarts of cold water and the beans.

  2. Boil slowly for 1 hour.

  3. Add the corn and continue boiling until both vegetables are tender.

  4. Remove the pork and place it on a dish.

  5. Drain nearly all the water from the vegetables.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the butter, sugar, and enough milk to cover them.

  2. Season with salt and pepper.

  3. Heat and serve with the pork.

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 + beanstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,211 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Corn + porktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,069 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  5. Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Dried sweet corn
Forms the main body of the dish and becomes tender and starchy when simmered.
Small white dried beans
Soften during long simmering to give the dish its hearty, starchy texture.
Salted pork
Flavors the cooking water with salt and fat as it simmers with the vegetables.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished vegetables.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess when heated with the vegetables.

The step that matters

Boil slowly until both vegetables are tender. Dried corn and beans need sustained gentle simmering to soften fully. Rapid boiling can break the skins and leave the centers firm, so the vegetables should cook low and steady until tender.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Beansthe original
  2. Peanutfits about as well
  3. Lima beansfits about as well
  4. Almondfits less well

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