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Lima Bean Puree

A creamy puree of lima beans, milk, and butter, served hot with croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Lima Bean Puree

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak 1 pint of lima beans overnight.

  2. Drain the water and remove the skins if they are loose.

Cook and puree

  1. Cook the beans in 1 pint of water with ½ teaspoon baking soda and celery leaves or stalk.

  2. Add 1 teaspoon salt and ¼ teaspoon pepper a few moments before the beans are tender.

  3. Once soft, pass the mixture through a puree sieve.

Finish and serve

  1. Return the puree to the heat and stir in 1 pint of milk and 1 tablespoon flour blended with 2 tablespoons butter.

  2. Serve hot with croutons.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Lima beans + celerytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together121 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

Lima beans
Provide the starchy base that becomes the thick, smooth puree.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, loosening the puree into a creamy consistency.
Flour
Thickens the liquid as it heats, giving the puree body.
Butter
Adds fat for a rounder flavour and smoother mouthfeel.
Baking soda
Softens the bean skins and helps the beans break down during cooking.

The step that matters

Pass the mixture through a puree sieve once soft. The beans must be fully tender before sieving, because under-cooked beans stay grainy and will not purée smoothly, and the skins are removed in the process.

Swap the lima beans

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, pepper, milk, flour, butter. 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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