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Lima Beans

A simple dish of cooked lima beans seasoned with salt, pepper, flour, butter, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Lima Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Soak and parboil

  1. Soak the beans in water overnight.

  2. Drain the beans, cover them with fresh water, and drain again.

  3. Cover with boiling soft water and boil for 30 minutes.

  4. Drain again, then cover with fresh boiling soft water.

  5. Add bicarbonate of soda and boil until tender.

  6. Drain.

Finish and serve

  1. Season with salt and pepper.

  2. Dredge with flour.

  3. Add butter and cream and let boil once.

  4. Serve.

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

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 dish, becoming tender through soaking and boiling.
Bicarbonate of soda
Softens the bean skins during boiling, helping the beans cook tender.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid slightly, giving the sauce body.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and creaminess, forming the sauce with the butter and flour.

The step that matters

Boil until tender. Bicarbonate of soda raises the pH of the cooking water, which softens the bean skins and speeds cooking. Too much can make beans mushy and dull in flavor, so check tenderness rather than relying only on time.

Swap the lima beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, cream, pepper):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Lima beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, cream, 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.

More lima beans recipes

Creamed 13Boiled 8Canned 8Dried 6Stewed 6Baked 3 See all 92 →

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