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Cream of Lima Bean Soup

A creamy soup made from soaked lima beans, onions, carrots, milk, butter, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cream of Lima Bean Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak the lima beans in water from morning until noon.

  2. Drain the soaked lima beans.

  3. Add 3 pints of cold water to the beans.

  4. Boil the beans slowly for 3 hours.

  5. Mash the beans against the side of the saucepan.

  6. Strain the mashed beans through a sieve.

Make the soup

  1. Cook the onion and carrot cubes in 2 tablespoons of butter until yellow.

  2. Add 1 cup of milk, 1 tablespoon of butter, 1 teaspoon of salt, and ¼ teaspoon of pepper to the pot.

  3. Mix 2 tablespoons of flour with 4 tablespoons of milk or water.

  4. Stir the flour mixture into the boiling soup.

  5. Strain the soup again.

  6. Serve the soup.

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. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Lima beans + carrottop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together131 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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 body of the soup when boiled, mashed and strained into a smooth base.
Butter
Fat that softens the onion and carrot and adds richness to the soup.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softness, giving the soup its cream style.
Flour
Thickens the soup as it cooks into the boiling liquid, giving body.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour mixture into the boiling soup. Flour clumps if added dry or to a cold liquid. Mixing it first into cold milk or water and then stirring it into boiling soup spreads the starch evenly so the soup thickens smoothly.

Swap the lima beans

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

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

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