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How Southerners Cook String Beans

A hearty bean dish cooked with salt pork and simmered for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and beans 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 ↓

How Southerners Cook String Beans

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Bring 1 gallon of water to a boil in a large pot.

  2. Add 4 pounds of salt fat pork and cook for 1 hour.

  3. Add the prepared string beans and boil for 2½ hours, keeping the pot covered with water.

  4. When the beans are nearly done, let the water reduce and add salt to taste.

  5. Serve hot.

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. Pork + beanstop 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

String beans
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender through long simmering.
Salt fat pork
Adds fat and savory flavor to the cooking liquid, seasoning the beans as they simmer.

The step that matters

Keeping the beans covered with water. If the water drops below the beans during the long boil, they can scorch and cook unevenly. Keeping them submerged ensures even tenderness and prevents the pot from drying out.

“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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