Name: Cream of Lima Bean Soup
Ingredients: 1 cup lima bean pulp; 2 slices of onion; 4 cups milk; ¼ cup cooked carrots, cubed; 2 tablespoons flour; 2 tablespoons butter; salt to taste; pepper to taste

Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cream of Lima Bean Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the carrots and onion in 1 tablespoon of butter for 5 minutes.
Thicken the milk with flour diluted in cold water.
Add the cooked onion and carrots, along with the lima bean pulp, to the thickened milk.
Season with salt and pepper.
Serve.

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.

Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,555 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together21,601 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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 bean pulp: Provides the main body and bean flavour of the soup.
Milk: Forms the liquid base that the flour thickens into a creamy soup.
Flour: Thickens the milk as it is heated, giving the soup a smooth, creamy body.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, and helps cook the onion and carrots.

The step that matters

Thicken the milk with flour diluted in cold water. Flour must be mixed smoothly into cold water first, then stirred into the milk. Added dry or lumpy, it clumps and the soup turns grainy instead of silky.

Swap the onion

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

Parsnipfits better
Potatofits better
Capsicumfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, carrot, flour, butter, 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.

Carrot Soup134 recipes

Tomato Soup526 recipes

Brown Bread461 recipes

Mutton Broth292 recipes

Like knowing why a recipe works?

The free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.

Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.

Cream of Lima Bean Soup