I think going to college is eye opening for many reasons, but to me one of the most overlooked is that you learn about different food. Suddenly you are thrown in with a whole new group of people from all over the place and they bring with them many of their families traditions, and if you are lucky, family recipes. After two years of living in a dorm, I moved in to an old house with several other girls. We thought we were very sophisticated and we all acquired cats because there was no one to tell us we couldn’t. More importantly, we considered ourselves to be quite knowledgeable about food and we each had a night to prepare dinner for the group. We hailed from Mississippi, Arkansas, Florida and Tennessee so in all actuality our food snobbery was pretty much limited to the southern dishes we had grown up with. When one of the girls mentioned she loved a dish called succotash I was both horrified and intrigued. She said it was a lot of trouble to make, but she would bring leftovers back from Thanksgiving where it was apparently a tradition in her house. Indeed a little jar of vegetable stuff did appear in our refrigerator after the holidays. It looked weird, but too interesting to pass up. I’m glad I didn’t, because it was the beginning of my love affair with succotash. I went to the library – college students still used those back them – and found several recipes for succotash.
The basics were all there, onions, lima beans, and corn – but after that the recipes were all a hodgepodge of different vegetables like tomatoes or okra, or peppers. I’ll spare you my years of experimentation and just get down to brass tacks with the recipe I cook and adore for succotash. First of all it is not hard to make. Secondly, it’s a great year round dish because half of it can come from your freezer. You will love it as a side dish to anything grilled or roasted. My little secret is that I also adore it cold and always hope some is leftover.
You begin succotash like so many recipes, by sweating onion, garlic and red pepper in a little olive oil with over a low heat, A dash of salt and sugar help to caramelize them. Next, add a package of frozen lima beans, corn – fresh or frozen, and sliced okra – again, fresh or frozen.
Cook all this in a little chicken broth with some red pepper flakes, and oddly, a little ginger (a later addition picked up from a friend) for about 30 minutes and you will have a masterpiece. It is beautiful, it is delicious and it is versatile. Now if you have just read this and thought, “yuck – I hate okra” then don’t use it – add tomatoes if you like or just let it be. But give succotash a try – I believe it will be love at first bite!
Ingredients
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
3-4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
½ tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
10 oz bag frozen baby lima bean
2 ears corn kernels or 10 oz bag frozen corn
1 cup sliced okra, fresh or frozen
2 cups chicken broth
1 tsp minced ginger – I used the prepared kind in a tube purchased in the produce section of the grocery, grated fresh, or ½ tsp dried would work as well
¼ tsp red pepper flakes
¼ tsp black pepper
Directions
Heat olive oil over low heat in a large pan or Dutch oven.
Add onion, garlic, pepper, salt and sugar.
Cover pan and simmer over low heat stirring occasionally to soften vegetables, about 15 minutes.
Add lima beans, corn, okra, ginger, and pepper.
Pour in chicken broth and stir to combine.
Simmer over low heat for 30 minutes stirring occasionally.
Taste for salt and pepper and serve.
Keep leftovers – it’s also delicious cold!
