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Succotash

Succotash is a stew of green corn and lima beans simmered with butter, salt, pepper, and milk.

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

  1. In a pot, combine green corn and Lima beans.

  2. Add enough water to cover the mixture.

  3. Stew gently for about 45 minutes until tender.

  4. Season with butter, coarse sea salt, black pepper, and a little milk. Simmer for a few moments and serve.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

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

  5. Lima beans + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together414 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Green corn
Provides the sweet, tender body of the dish and most of its flavor.
Lima beans
Add starchy substance and a firm, creamy texture that holds up to stewing.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the stewed vegetables.
Milk
Adds creaminess and dairy richness that softens the stew's texture.

The step that matters

Stew gently for about 45 minutes until tender. A gentle simmer softens the starchy Lima beans evenly without breaking them apart. A hard boil can toughen skins and scorch the bottom, so keep the heat low and check for tenderness.

Swap the lima beans

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

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

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