Name: Lima Beans
Ingredients: fresh lima beans; pinch of baking soda; butter; coarse sea salt; sugar; cream

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Lima Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Parboil the lima beans in water until they are half cooked.
Drain the water and add fresh hot water to finish cooking.
Once fully cooked, add butter and let it brown slightly.
Season with a pinch of salt and a little sugar.
Pour in enough cream to create a little gravy and let it boil once before serving.

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.

Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Lima beans + buttertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together414 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Lima beans + creamtop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together152 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).