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Salad

Lima Bean Salad

A salad of boiled lima beans, diced potatoes, celery, and mayonnaise, garnished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Lima Bean Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the lima beans until tender.

  2. Let the beans cool.

Assemble and serve

  1. Add the diced potatoes and chopped celery.

  2. Cover with mayonnaise dressing.

  3. Set on ice.

  4. Garnish with parsley.

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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  3. Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

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

  4. Tea + potatotop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together136 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Lima beans + potatotop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together62 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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, tender texture of the salad.
Potatoes
Add starch and a soft, hearty bite that holds up under the dressing.
Celery
Adds a crisp, fresh crunch that contrasts with the soft beans and potatoes.
Mayonnaise dressing
Supplies fat and creaminess that moistens and binds the salad.

The step that matters

Let the beans cool before dressing. Warm beans and potatoes absorb dressing unevenly and can make the mayonnaise separate or turn greasy. Cooling first lets the dressing cling and stay smooth.

Swap the lima beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tea, potato, celery, parsley):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Chickpeafits better
  3. Walnutfits better
  4. Lima beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tea, potato, celery, parsley. 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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