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Cream of Lima Beans

A creamy soup made from Lima beans, butter, flour, broth, and cream, served with croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cream of Lima Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the flour and Lima beans, seasoning with salt.

Cook and strain

  1. Moisten with white broth and cook for 30 minutes.

  2. Strain through a sieve.

Serve

  1. Serve with cream and small croutons souffles.

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

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + lima beanstop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together414 recipes

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

  4. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  5. Flour + lima beanstop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together162 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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, creamy texture once strained.
Flour
Thickens the liquid as its starch swells during cooking, giving the soup body.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour, and coats the flour to start the thickening.
White broth
Supplies the cooking liquid that softens the beans and forms the soup base.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel when served on top.

The step that matters

Cook the beans fully before straining. The beans must be fully tender so the sieve produces a smooth purée. Simmering also lets the flour's starch thicken the broth evenly.

Swap the lima beans

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Macadamia nutfits better
  4. Lima beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, 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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