Name: Lima Bean Salad
Ingredients: 2 cups baby lima beans; ½ cup mayonnaise; 1 canned pimento; ½ cup tender chopped celery; tender lettuce leaves

Why it works: Celery and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,033 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Lima Bean Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Cook fresh baby lima beans until tender.
If using canned beans, drain and rinse them.

Assemble and serve

In a bowl, combine the lima beans, mayonnaise, chopped pimento, and celery. Mix well and serve on tender lettuce leaves.

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.

Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,033 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Lima beans + lettucetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together16 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Lima beans + celerytop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together121 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

What each ingredient does

Baby lima beans: Provide the main body and starchy, tender texture of the salad.
Mayonnaise: Adds fat and moisture, binding the beans and celery into a creamy dressing.
Celery: Adds crisp texture that contrasts with the soft, cooked beans.