Name: Lima Beans Salad
Ingredients: dried, fresh, or canned lima beans; cream dressing; hollandaise dressing; mayonnaise dressing; lettuce

Why it works: Lima beans and lettuce work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Lima Beans Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the lima beans until tender.
Allow the beans to cool.
Mix the cooled beans with your choice of cream, hollandaise, or mayonnaise dressing.
Serve the mixture on a bed of lettuce.

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 + lettucetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together16 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Lima beans + creamtop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together152 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
Cream + lettucetop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,121 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).