Name: Succotash
Ingredients: 1 part dry Lima beans; 2 parts dried sweet corn; Salt; Sweet cream

Why it works: Lima beans and corn 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

1 part dry Lima beans
2 parts dried sweet corn
Salt
Sweet cream

Directions

Boil the dry Lima beans and dried sweet corn separately until nearly tender.
Combine the beans and corn in a pot.
Simmer gently until fully cooked.
Season with salt and sweet cream.

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.

Lima beans + corntop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together222 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Lima beans + creamtop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together152 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
Corn + creamtop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,532 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).