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Lima Beans

Lima beans are dried beans that are soaked, boiled, skinned, and then mashed with fat, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lima beans and butter work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 414 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Lima Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Weigh and measure the dried Lima beans.

  2. Wash and soak the beans in water for 24 hours.

  3. Weigh the beans again; if possible, soak for an additional 12 to 24 hours and weigh again.

Cook and finish

  1. Cook the soaked beans in boiling water until the skins are tender.

  2. Remove the skins by hand after parboiling.

  3. Mash the skinned beans and mix in fat, salt, and pepper, or use them for croquettes or soup.

  4. Alternatively, rinse the beans that retain their shape and serve with lettuce and dressing for a salad.

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

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

  2. Lima beans + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together468 recipes

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

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 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

Dried lima beans
Form the main body of the dish; soaking and cooking soften their starch into a tender texture.
Fat (butter or oil)
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel when mixed into the mashed beans.

The step that matters

Cook the soaked beans until the skins are tender. Dried beans need enough time in boiling water for their starches to gelatinize fully; undercooked beans stay firm and grainy, and skins that remain tough will not separate cleanly.

Swap the lima beans

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

  1. Walnutfits about as well
  2. Black-eyed peafits about as well
  3. Almondfits about as well
  4. Lima beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, 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.

More lima beans recipes

Creamed 13Boiled 8Canned 8Dried 6Stewed 6Baked 3 See all 92 →

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