Name: Lima Beans
Ingredients: dried lima beans; cold water; 1 inch piece of streaked fat pork or bacon; butter; pepper; coarse sea salt

Why it works: Lima beans and pork work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 139 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Lima Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Soak the dried lima beans overnight, changing the water twice.
In the morning, cook the beans in cold water with the piece of pork or bacon.
When the beans are soft, drain them and remove the pork.
Season the beans with butter, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

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 + porktop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together139 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,933 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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).
Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,121 recipes

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