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Lima Beans, French Style

A creamy lima bean dish with egg yolks, butter, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter 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, French Style

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, combine the cream, egg yolks, and butter.

  2. Heat gently, stirring until well combined.

  3. Add the cooked lima beans and toss to coat.

  4. Serve topped with finely chopped parsley.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Lima beans + parsleytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together126 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

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

  4. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

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

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the cream into a smooth, rich sauce that clings to the beans as it gently sets.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, forming the body of the sauce that coats the beans.
Butter
Adds fat for a silky mouthfeel and rich flavour in the sauce.
Lima beans
Provide the starchy, tender base that the sauce coats and carries.

The step that matters

Heat gently, stirring until well combined. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat; if the mixture gets too hot or is not stirred, the yolks can scramble and curdle, leaving a grainy sauce instead of a smooth one.

Swap the lima beans

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, egg, butter, parsley. 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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