Name: Lima or Butter Beans
Ingredients: Lima beans or butter beans; Salt; Butter; Pepper; Baking soda (optional)

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 or Butter Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Shell and wash the beans in cold water.
Boil enough water to cover the beans with a little salt.

Cook and serve

Add the beans and boil for 30 minutes.
Pour off the water and season with butter and pepper.
If the beans are old, add a small pinch of baking soda.

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: Form the main body of the dish, providing starchy, tender texture when cooked.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor across the beans.
Baking soda: Raises the cooking water's pH, helping older beans soften.