Name: Barbecued Lima Beans
Ingredients: 4½ cups dried baby lima beans; ¼ lb salt pork or bacon, diced; 1 cup chopped onions; 1¼ tsp minced garlic; 3 tbsp mustard; 2 tsp Worcestershire sauce; ¼ tsp salt; 2 tsp chili powder; 4 tsp brown sugar; ¼ cup vinegar

Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

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.

Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together29,058 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Garlic + mustardtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together4,053 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,259 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,214 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Dried baby lima beans: Provide the main body and starchy, creamy texture of the dish.
Salt pork or bacon: Adds fat and savory flavor that carries into the onions and sauce.
Onions: Add sweetness and aroma as they soften in the rendered pork fat.
Mustard: Contributes sharp tang and emulsifying body to the sauce.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the top brown during baking.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and richness.

The step that matters

Drain beans, reserving 2 cups liquid. The reserved cooking liquid supplies moisture and starch that thicken the sauce during baking. Draining too thoroughly leaves the beans dry, while too much liquid makes the dish loose and soupy.

Swap the lima beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, onion, garlic, mustard, sauce, sugar, vinegar):

Sesamefits better
Beansfits better
Cashew nutfits better
Lima beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, onion, garlic, mustard, sauce, sugar, vinegar. 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.

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Pork	100g cooked	242
Lima Bean	1/2 cup (85g) cooked	108
Sugar	1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated	49
Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Bacon	1 slice cooked (8g)	43
Soy Sauce	1 tbsp (15ml)	9
Chili	1 tsp (2.7g)	8
Garlic	1 clove (3g)	4
Mustard	1 tsp (5g) yellow	3
Vinegar	1 tbsp (15ml) distilled	3
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0

Barbecued Lima Beans