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Lima Bean Soup

A creamy soup made with lima beans, butter, milk, flour, water, and onion.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Lima Bean Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Slice the onion and brown it in the butter.

  2. Add the flour and stir until smooth and brown.

Cook and finish

  1. Add the water and lima beans, and cook until soft.

  2. Press the mixture through a sieve.

  3. Scald the milk and add it to the soup.

  4. Season to taste and serve.

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

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Lima beans + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together331 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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
Form the main body of the soup and give it its starchy, substantial texture.
Butter
Carries the onion's flavor and adds richness to the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup as it browns and cooks with the butter.
Milk
Adds creaminess and a smooth, mellow body to the finished soup.
Onion
Browning in butter builds sweetness and savory aroma.

The step that matters

Browning the flour. Stirring the flour in butter until smooth and brown cooks out its raw taste and builds nutty flavor. It scorches quickly and can turn bitter, so keep it moving over the heat.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Okrafits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lima beans, butter, milk, 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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