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Lima Bean Soup

A simple soup made with lima beans, water, onion, carrots, celery, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Lima Bean Soup

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak the lima beans overnight in water.

  2. Drain and rinse the beans, then place them in a pot with 4 cups of fresh water.

Simmer the soup

  1. Add the chopped onion, sliced carrots, and chopped celery.

  2. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until beans are tender, about 1 hour.

  3. Season with salt and pepper to taste 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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 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
Provide the main body and starch that thickens the soup as they cook tender.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aroma as it softens in the broth.
Carrots
Contribute gentle sweetness and color while holding some shape in the soup.
Celery
Adds a mild, savory aroma and subtle background flavor to the broth.

The step that matters

Simmer until the beans are fully tender. Dried lima beans need a gentle, sustained simmer to soften their starches fully. Stopping early leaves them firm and grainy, and a hard boil can break them apart.

Swap the lima beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, carrot, celery, pepper):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Black-eyed peafits better
  3. Lentilsfits better
  4. Lima beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, carrot, celery, 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.

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