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Stewed Lima Beans

A stew of lima beans cooked with salt pork, onion, parsley, pepper, milk, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Stewed Lima Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the beans

  1. Boil the lima beans in salted water for 15 minutes.

  2. Drain half of the water and stir in the pork, onion, parsley, pepper, hot milk, and baking soda.

  3. Stew slowly for another 15 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the butter rolled in flour and cook for 10 more minutes.

  2. Serve hot.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Lima beans
Form the main body of the dish and absorb the milk and seasoning as they stew.
Sweet salt pork
Adds savory fat and meaty flavor that carries through the stewed beans.
Hot milk
Provides liquid and creaminess that thickens gently as the beans stew.
Butter and flour
Flour thickens the liquid and butter adds richness to give the stew body.
Baking soda
Raises the pot's alkalinity, helping the beans soften more readily as they stew.

The step that matters

Stirring in the butter rolled in flour. Adding flour directly to hot liquid can form lumps. Rolling the butter in flour first lets it disperse evenly and thicken the stew smoothly as it cooks.

Swap the lima beans

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, onion, parsley, pepper, milk, butter, flour. 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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