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Lima Beans, Canned

This recipe describes how to can young lima beans in salt water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Lima Beans, Canned

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Pick over and wash the young lima beans in cold water, then drain in a colander.

  2. Fill the cans with the beans and pour in enough cold water to cover them.

  3. Add 1 teaspoon of coarse sea salt to each pint of beans.

Seal and boil

  1. Solder the cans tightly with lead.

  2. Place the cans in a large boiler and cover with cold water.

  3. Boil the cans for 1 hour.

Vent and finish

  1. Remove the cans and puncture a small hole in the top of each can to release steam.

  2. Quickly solder the holes and return the cans to the boiler.

  3. Boil the cans for an additional hour.

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

What each ingredient does

Young lima beans
The main food being preserved; its firm texture must survive the long boiling.

The step that matters

Venting and re-soldering the cans before the second boil. Steam pressure builds inside sealed cans during boiling and must be released, or the cans can burst. Lead solder is hazardous and this historical method is unsafe; use a current tested home-canning process instead.

“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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