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Pork and Beans

A stew of beans and pork squares simmered and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and pork are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,000 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Pork and Beans

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Soak and parboil

  1. Wash the beans at night and pour 1 quart of tepid water over them.

  2. In the morning, add 2 quarts of water and boil for 30 to 45 minutes, until the skins begin to crack.

  3. Drain the beans and place them in a bean pot.

Bake

  1. Score the pork in small squares.

  2. Place the scored pork in the center of the beans, sinking it to the rind.

  3. Pour 1 quart of hot water over the beans.

  4. Cover the pot.

  5. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for 3 hours.

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. Beans + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Beans
Form the bulk of the dish and, once cooked slowly, become tender and creamy.
Pork
Adds rich fat and savory flavor as it slowly renders into the beans during baking.

The step that matters

Cover the pot before baking. A covered pot traps steam and holds moisture, so the beans cook gently in liquid instead of drying out over the long three-hour bake.

“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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