Kidney bean and corn dishes are having their day in the sun. I see recipes for them all the time, and they are served at many restaurants. Last week I went out for lunch, and had a lovely kidney bean and corn salad. So I was pleased to come across a Baked Succotash recipe that called for kidney beans in a hundred-year-old magazine.
I was a little surprised by the recipe name. I generally think of succotash as a mixture of lima beans and corn, but it apparently is a general term for bean and corn combinations. In any case, I decided to give the Baked Succotash recipe a try.
In addition to the kidney beans and corn, the recipe called for a little chopped green pepper. Beaten egg is stirred into the vegetables, and then it is baked.
The Baked Succotash was tasty, but a little dry (and a few of the kidney beans split). The vegetables were lightly bonded to one another other by the egg coating, but since there was no milk, it did not have the creaminess of a scalloped vegetable dish. After I made this dish, I actually wondered why the recipe author decided to bake the succotash. If I made this recipe again, I might have a tendency just to heat the vegetables on the top of the stove . . . or I might adapt the recipe and add a white sauce to the egg to make Scalloped Succotash . . . or . . .
Bottom line: Kidney beans and corn are a wonderful combination. And, I want to make dishes with this combination again in the future, but I’ll probably experiment a little when I do rather than replicating the Baked Succotash recipe.
Here’s the original recipe:
When I made this recipe, it took more than 30 minutes for the food to get hot and for the egg to thicken.
Here’s the Bake Succotash recipe updated for modern cooks:
Baked Succotash
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1 can kidney beans, drained and rinses
1 can corn, drained (or 1 1/2 cups frozen corn, thawed)
1 tablespoon green pepper, finely chopped
Step 1. Preheat oven to 375° F.
Step 2. In a mixing bowl, whisk together the egg, salt, and pepper.
Step 3. Add the kidney beans, corn, and green pepper. Stir gently to coat the vegetables with the egg mixture.
Step 4. Put in a baking dish (a 1-quart dish works well), and place in oven. Bake for 30 – 40 minutes, or until hot.
Interesting! I really like kidney beans…and corn… but never have eaten them together. Growing up, my mom would cook lima beans (we called them butterbeans), corn and diced potatoes together. So that was our version of succotash. I learned, later in life, that many times, succotash contains tomatoes. Mom wasn’t a tomato fan, and neither am I. Good luck with your further experiments with your kidney bean and corn dishes!
Great suggestions – I never would have thought of adding potatoes (or tomatoes for that matter) to succotash. It’s fun to experiment with different ways to combine vegetables.
It was always lima beans and corn for my family. Your recipe looks very Mexican, as those ingredients are often used together.
When I made this recipe, I also thought that it might possibly have Mexican origins.
So THAT’s what Succotash is! I’ve come across it in American novels from time to time and never known what it could be,
Now you know. I gather that corn and bean mixtures aren’t common in the U.K. (or that if they are, that they aren’t called succotash).
Nope. It’s never occurred to me to mix beans and corn, and I don’t recall ever seeing a recipe. I’ll have to try it!
I think that you’ll like succotash . . . and I think that we’ve identified another difference in familiar foods across the two sides of the Atlantic. 🙂
It’s all quite surprising!
Looks tasty. I keep thinking about the cartoon characters of my childhood who said, “Sufferin’ succotash” 🙂
Thanks for reminding me. I haven’t heard that phrase in a long time.
I’m more familiar with Lima beans in succotash, and adding an egg is also new to me. Live and learn! 🙂
I’m still trying to figure out why the recipe author added the egg. It was a relatively small amount of egg compared to the vegetables so it didn’t add much flavor, and the dish was a little less attractive with the light egg coating.
A great honest sharing of the recipe!
Thank you for the nice comment. I appreciate that you liked how I wrote the description of this recipe. I generally try to select hundred-year-old recipes that I appeal to me, so I often am pleased with how the recipe turns out; but, inevitably there are times, like when I made this recipe, when a recipe didn’t turn out as well as I’d hoped. I then try to explain how the recipe turned out.
Everything old is new again!
Recipe trends ebb and flow. 🙂
I didn’t know that! I happen to like lima beans, so I like succotash, but I can hardly ever make it, because no one else seems to like lima beans! I’m eager to try it with kidney beans.
Kidney beans and corn work well together. Fingers crossed that others like the combination.
It was always corn and Lima beans when I was growing up too. Looks like a delicious recipe, thank you!
Corn and kidney beans make a nice combination.
Oh, so yummy looking!
The different colors of the vegetables make for an attractive side dish. The red kidney beans, yellow corn, and green peppers make a nice colorful mixture.