Name: Sweet Sour Lima Beans
Ingredients: Lima beans; sauce for sweet sour string beans

Why it works: Lima beans and beans match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 156 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Sweet Sour Lima Beans

Ingredients

Lima beans
sauce for sweet sour string beans

Directions

Boil and drain the Lima beans.
Prepare the sauce as directed for sweet sour string beans.
Add the beans to the sauce and simmer for 20 minutes.
Serve hot.

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 + beanstop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together156 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Sauce + beanstop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,184 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Lima beans + saucetop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together50 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).