Why it works: Lima beans and lemon work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Cream of Bean Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the beans
Boil one cupful dry lima beans for six or eight hours.
Mash the beans and put them through a sieve.
Make the soup
Put one teaspoonful flour and one teaspoonful butter in a saucepan, rub smooth, add one cupful beef stock, salt, and half cupful sweet cream, and bring to a good boil. Add the mashed beans and serve hot with a slice of lemon in each plate of soup.
Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)
Counts 6 of 7 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.
What these numbers assume: 6 portions
| Ingredient | Portion assumed | kcal |
|---|---|---|
| Flour | 1 cup (125g) all-purpose | 455 |
| Beef | 100g cooked | 250 |
| Lima Bean | 1/2 cup (85g) cooked | 108 |
| Cream | 1 tbsp (15ml) heavy | 51 |
| Lemon | juice of 1 lemon (48ml) | 12 |
| Salt | 1 tsp (6g) | 0 |
| Soup | not in our table | 0 |
One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.
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. See the original page.
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 + lemontop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
-
Lima beans + beeftop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together82 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
-
Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,404 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,481 recipes
Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).
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Beef + lemontop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,278 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
- Provide the main body and starchy, earthy flavor of the soup.
- Flour
- Thickens the liquid as its starch swells when heated with the fat.
- Beef stock
- Supplies the savory liquid base that carries the beans and flavor.
- Sweet cream
- Adds richness, a silky mouthfeel, and mellows the savory notes.
The step that matters
Rubbing the flour and butter smooth. Flour clumps when dropped into hot liquid because its outer starch gels before the grains separate. Blending it into the butter first creates a smooth paste that disperses evenly and thickens the soup without lumps.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lima beans, flour, beef, cream):
- Raisinfits better
- Coconutfits better
- Pumpkinfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against lima beans, flour, beef, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“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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