Why it works: Lima beans and sugar work together. They rank in the top 30% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓
Beans, Lima
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the beans
Gather beans when they are tender and in prime condition.
Wash, hull, and sort the beans carefully.
Blanch the beans in boiling water for 3 to 5 minutes or in live steam for 5 to 10 minutes.
Pack and process
Pack the beans immediately into hot jars or cans.
Fill the containers with boiling water and stir to remove air bubbles.
Add 1 teaspoon of coarse sea salt and, if desired, 2 teaspoons of sugar per quart.
Process under 10 pounds of steam pressure for 45 to 60 minutes.
Remove the jars from the canner and seal them at once.
For tin cans, plunge them into cold water to cool quickly.
Store
Store the sealed jars in a dark, dry, cool place.
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.
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Lima beans + sugartop 30% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together118 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Lima beans
- The main food being preserved; they hold their texture and flavour through canning.
- Coarse sea salt
- Seasons the beans and adds savour in the sealed jar.
- Sugar
- Optional; adds mild sweetness that balances the beans' earthy flavour.
The step that matters
Process under steam pressure for the full time. Lima beans are low-acid vegetables, so they must reach a high enough temperature under pressure to destroy harmful spores. Shortening the processing time or skipping pressure can leave the sealed jars unsafe to store.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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