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Lima or Butter Beans

A simple bean dish made with lima beans, milk, butter, and optional bacon, simmered until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Lima or Butter Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the beans

  1. Cover the beans with boiling water in a saucepan.

  2. Cook uncovered for about 1 hour, or until the beans are tender and water is evaporated.

  3. Add milk, butter, and salt; simmer for a few minutes.

Serve

  1. Pour into a dish.

  2. Sprinkle with black pepper.

  3. Serve immediately.

  4. For a bacon version, cook bacon with the beans, omitting milk and butter.

  5. Use the cooking liquid for flavor.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  3. Beans + milktop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,266 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  4. Butter + beanstop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,799 recipes

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

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 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

Green shelled butter beans
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender as they cook.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softness to the beans as they simmer.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded flavor.

The step that matters

Cook uncovered until tender and the water has evaporated. Beans need enough time to soften fully, and cooking uncovered lets excess liquid reduce so the dish does not turn watery before the milk and butter are added.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Cocoafits better
  2. Walnutfits about as well
  3. Lima beansfits about as well
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, 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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