Name: Lima Beans
Ingredients: 1 can lima beans; 2 tablespoons butter; ¼ teaspoon pepper; ¼ teaspoon salt

Why it works: Lima beans and butter work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 414 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Lima Beans

Ingredients

1 can lima beans
2 tablespoons butter
¼ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon salt

Directions

Prepare

Open the can of lima beans and empty them into a bowl an hour before needed.
Drain the liquid.

Cook and serve

Cook the beans in boiling water for 25 minutes.
Drain again.
Add butter, pepper, and salt.
Serve warm.

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 + buttertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together414 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Lima beans + peppertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together468 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Lima beans: Starchy base that provides the bulk and soft, mealy texture of the dish.
Butter: Adds fat that carries flavor and gives the beans a rich, smooth mouthfeel.