Name: Succotash
Ingredients: 2 cups sugar corn; 1 cup lima beans

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

2 cups sugar corn
1 cup lima beans

Directions

Remove the grain from the corn cob as whole as possible using a knife.
Combine two-thirds corn with one-third lima beans.
Prepare the mixture for cooking in a kettle.

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.

Corn + lima beanstop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together222 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Sugar + corntop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together7,168 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar + lima beanstop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together118 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).