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Cream of Lima Beans and Onions

A creamy soup made from boiled lima beans, onions, parsley, butter, flour, milk, salt, and paprika.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Cream of Lima Beans and Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the puree

  1. Boil the lima beans, sliced onions, and parsley sprig until tender.

  2. Pass the mixture through a sieve.

Make the soup

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter, then stir in the flour, salt, and paprika.

  2. Gradually add the milk, stirring constantly until boiling.

  3. Stir in the vegetable puree and let it boil once.

  4. Use as a garnish for meat or fish, or shape it on a serving dish.

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. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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
Provide the main body and flavor of the soup once pureed.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor when melted with the flour.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth, creamy base as it cooks.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid that the thickened base becomes.
Onions
Add savory sweetness and aroma to the puree.

The step that matters

Gradually add the milk, stirring constantly until boiling. Adding milk slowly while stirring keeps the flour evenly dispersed, preventing lumps. The mixture must reach a boil so the starch swells and thickens the soup.

Swap the lima beans

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

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Almondfits better
  3. Cashew nutfits better
  4. Lima beansthe original

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