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Lima Beans, Macedoine

A savory stew of lima beans with mushrooms, shallots, parsley, and artichoke, finished with butter and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and artichoke share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 97 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Lima Beans, Macedoine

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stew

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the chopped shallots and sliced mushrooms, cover, and cook lightly.

  3. Stir in the flour and gradually add the white broth, mixing to avoid lumps.

  4. Add the parsley faggot and the cooked lima beans, cover, and let simmer for 20 minutes.

  5. Remove the faggot and stir in the boiled artichoke pieces.

  6. Season with salt and pepper, and simmer for an additional 10 minutes.

Serve

  1. Before serving, garnish with chopped parsley or chives.

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. Shallot + artichoketop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together97 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + summer savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together241 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Parsley + artichoketop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together524 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the stew and carries the flavour of the shallots and mushrooms.
Flour
Thickens the broth into a smooth, lightly bodied sauce.
White broth
Forms the liquid base that the beans and vegetables simmer in.
Lima beans
Provide the main body and starchy, creamy texture of the stew.
Artichoke bottoms
Add tender pieces with a mild, delicate flavour to the stew.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour and broth. Adding liquid gradually while stirring keeps the flour dispersed so it hydrates evenly, preventing lumps and giving a smooth, thickened sauce.

Swap the lima beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, shallot, mushroom, flour, parsley, summer savory, artichoke):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, shallot, mushroom, flour, parsley, summer savory, artichoke. 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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