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Baked Pork and Beans

A baked dish of dried beans cooked with salt pork, molasses, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Baked Pork and Beans

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the beans

  1. Pick over and wash the beans, then soak them in plenty of cold water overnight.

  2. Drain the beans.

  3. Place the beans in a kettle covered with cold water and boil until tender.

  4. Drain the beans again.

Bake

  1. Transfer the beans to a stone or earthen pot.

  2. Score the rind of the salt pork and bury it in the middle of the beans.

  3. Add enough boiling water to cover the beans and an additional quarter.

  4. Stir in the molasses if desired.

  5. Cover the pot with a plate or earthen baking dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for five hours.

  6. If the water level drops below the beans during baking, add more boiling water to cover.

  7. Toward the end of baking, uncover the pot to allow the pork to brown.

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).

  2. Beans + molassestop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together491 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Pork + molassestop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together825 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Dried beans
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender through soaking and boiling before baking.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor as it renders into the beans, and its rind browns at the end.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and a dark, rich color to the baking liquid.

The step that matters

Keep the beans covered with water while baking. If the liquid drops below the beans, the exposed portions can dry out and toughen. Adding more boiling water keeps the beans moist and evenly cooked during the long, slow bake.

Swap the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, molasses):

  1. Beansthe original
  2. Peanutfits about as well
  3. Sesamefits less well
  4. Nutsfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, molasses. 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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