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Lima Beans

Lima beans are boiled until very tender, then finished with cream, flour, butter, salt, pepper and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 31 ingredients
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Why it works: Lima beans and beans match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 156 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Lima Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Sort the beans as you shell them, and save the very large ones for a purge.

  2. Soak the small ones overnight.

  3. Drain the water when about to cook, put the beans in a porcelain or agate saucepan, and cover with three pints of boiling water.

Cook and season

  1. Boil them until very tender, which will require at least two hours.

  2. After they have boiled one hour, add a teaspoonful of salt, or salt to taste.

  3. When done, drain the beans and return them to the saucepan.

  4. Add a half pint of cream or milk, a tablespoonful of flour blended well with butter, salt and pepper to taste, a sprig each of thyme and parsley, and bay leaf minced very fine.

  5. Let all simmer for ten minutes, and then serve hot.

Alternative serving

  1. Or serve the beans without the cream, simply buttering them well and adding salt and pepper to taste.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

851Calories
24 gProtein
19 gFat
147 gCarbs

Counts 13 of 15 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 13 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Lima Bean1/2 cup (85g) cooked108
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Beet1/2 cup (85g)35
Beet Root1/2 cup (85g)35
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Thyme1 tsp dried (1.4g)4
Vinegar1 tbsp (15ml) distilled3
Bay Leaf1 leaf (0.6g)2
Parsley1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)1
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0
Beannot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

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. 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.

  1. Lima beans + beanstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together156 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Beans + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,733 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Flour + beanstop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,080 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 starch and a tender, creamy texture when cooked.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety body to the cooked beans.
Flour
Thickens the cream sauce so it clings to the beans.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and flavour, and helps bind the flour into the sauce.

The step that matters

Boil the beans until very tender. Dried or shelled lima beans stay firm and starchy if undercooked, and they need long, steady boiling to soften fully. Adding salt after the first hour is recorded, so check tenderness before finishing.

Swap the lima beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, cream, beans, sugar, vinegar, pepper):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Cashew nutfits about as well
  4. Lima beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, cream, beans, sugar, vinegar, pepper. 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.

More lima beans recipes

Creamed 13Boiled 8Canned 8Dried 6Stewed 6Baked 3 See all 92 →

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