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Lima Beans

A creamy side dish of boiled lima beans with mushrooms, butter, and cream, 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: Mushroom and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Lima Beans

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a chafing dish, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the boiled Lima beans and chopped mushrooms.

  3. Pour in the cream, then season with salt and pepper.

  4. Let the mixture simmer for about 10 minutes.

  5. Serve hot.

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. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

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

  3. Lima beans + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  4. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lima beans
Provide the main body and starchy, tender texture of the dish.
Mushrooms
Add savory, earthy flavor and a soft texture to the mixture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavor and helps coat the beans.
Cream
Thickens the mixture slightly and adds moisture and richness.

The step that matters

Simmering after adding the cream. Cream can separate or scorch if it boils hard over direct heat. A gentle simmer keeps it smooth and lets it thicken slightly while the flavors blend.

Swap the lima beans

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

  1. Beansfits about as well
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Walnutfits about as well
  4. Lima beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, 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.

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