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Cream of Lima Beans

A creamy soup made from boiled lima beans, onion, butter, milk, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cream of Lima Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the beans

  1. Boil the lima beans in water to cover until nearly tender.

  2. Add the bay leaf, onion, salt, and white pepper; cook until very tender.

  3. Remove from heat and mash through a colander with the cooking water.

Finish the soup

  1. Return to the saucepan, bring to a boil, then stir in the butter and boiling milk.

  2. Press through a puree sieve for a smooth texture.

  3. Beat the cream and add it to the soup in the tureen; serve immediately.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  4. Lima beans + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together414 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Lima beans
Form the bulk of the soup and, once mashed, give it body and a thick texture.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Milk
Thins the mashed beans into a smooth, creamy soup base.
Cream
Adds richness and a light, smooth finish when beaten into the soup.

The step that matters

Press through a puree sieve. Mashing through a colander leaves small fibrous bits and skins. Pressing the purée through a fine sieve removes them, which is what gives the soup its smooth texture.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lima beans, onion, butter, milk, cream):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lima beans, onion, butter, milk, cream. 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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