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Cream Lima Bean Soup

A creamy soup made from soaked Lima beans, onions, white sauce, and milk or stock, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cream Lima Bean Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak the dried Lima beans in cold water overnight.

  2. Drain and cook the beans in fresh water for about 2 hours.

Make the soup

  1. Add the sliced onions and cook until tender.

  2. Pass the mixture through a potato press, using the cooking water.

  3. For each cup of bean mixture, add 1 cup of white sauce and enough milk or white stock to achieve desired consistency.

  4. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

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

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

  2. Lima beans + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together331 recipes

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

  3. Lima beans + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together468 recipes

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

  4. Lima beans + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together132 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  5. Onion + saucetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Onion and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,474 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

Dried lima beans
Form the main body of the soup, thickening into a purée when pressed.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory depth as they soften during cooking.
White sauce
Adds richness and body, giving the soup a creamy texture.
Milk or white stock
Thins the mixture to the desired consistency and adds moisture.

The step that matters

Passing the mixture through a potato press. Pressing the cooked beans and onions breaks down their cell walls into a smooth purée. Using the cooking water keeps the mixture loose enough to pass through, so the soup ends up silky rather than grainy.

Swap the lima beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, sauce, milk, pepper):

  1. Sesamefits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Black-eyed peafits better
  4. Lima beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, sauce, milk, 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.

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