Name: Lima Beans
Ingredients: very young lima beans; slightly salted water; pepper; coarse sea salt; butter; 1 onion (optional); cream; parsley (for garnish)

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Lima Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Select very young lima beans and sort them as you shell.
Soak the small beans in cold water.
Boil a large kettle of slightly salted water.
Add the beans and boil for 40 to 60 minutes, depending on their age.
Drain the beans and return them to the pot.
Add pepper, coarse sea salt, butter, and grated fried onion if desired.
Stew gently for 10 to 15 minutes.
Alternatively, after boiling, add cream, butter, pepper, and salt, and stew for 10 to 15 minutes.
Serve garnished with finely chopped parsley.

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.

Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together25,843 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Lima beans + oniontop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together331 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

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lima beans, pepper, butter, cream, parsley):

Potatofits better
Carrotfits better
Okrafits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lima beans, pepper, butter, cream, parsley. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.