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A New Way of Cooking Lima Beans

A dish of lima beans simmered in coconut milk, butter, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Coconut and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,467 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

A New Way of Cooking Lima Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Boil the lima beans in boiling water for 15 minutes, then simmer for an additional 15 minutes.

  2. Drain and cool the beans, then remove the outer covering without breaking them.

Make the coconut milk

  1. Prepare coconut milk by pouring boiling water over the grated coconut.

  2. Stir vigorously, then squeeze out the fatty substance.

  3. Strain the coconut milk through a cloth.

Finish and serve

  1. Cover the beans with the coconut milk and simmer for 8 minutes.

  2. Season with salt, butter, and lemon juice just 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.

  1. Coconut + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

  2. Lima beans + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Coconut + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Lima beans + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together414 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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 texture of the dish.
Grated coconut
Supplies the fat and flavour that make the coconut milk rich.
Butter
Adds richness and a rounded, fatty mouthfeel at the end.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the rich coconut milk.

The step that matters

Remove the outer covering without breaking the beans. Cooked lima bean skins loosen as they cool, so peeling after draining and cooling keeps the beans whole and intact for the coconut milk to coat.

Swap the lima beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (coconut, butter, lemon):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chickpeafits better
  3. Cashew nutfits better
  4. Lima beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against coconut, butter, lemon. 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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