Why it works: Lima beans and pepper work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 468 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓
Lima Beans
Ingredients
Directions
Shell the lima beans and wash them in cold water.
Boil the beans for one hour.
Drain off the water and season with salt, pepper, and cream or butter.
Serve hot.
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.
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Lima beans + peppertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together468 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Pepper + creamtop 23% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together21,449 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
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Lima beans + creamtop 24% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together152 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
Pepper and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the lima beans
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, cream):
- Chestnutfits better
- Pistachiofits better
- Beansfits better
- Lima beansthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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