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Pork and BEANs

A dish of boiled beans with salted pork, baked until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 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 ↓

Pork and BEANs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pork

  1. Parboil the salt pork.

  2. Score the skin of the pork.

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak the beans overnight in lukewarm water, changing the water twice for warmer water.

  2. In the morning, boil the beans in cold water until soft.

  3. Drain the beans.

Bake

  1. Place the beans in a deep dish, half-burying the pork in the middle.

  2. Add a little warm water.

  3. Bake until nicely browned.

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

Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor that seasons the beans as the dish bakes.
Dried beans
Form the body of the dish; soaking and boiling soften them until tender.
Warm water
Keeps the beans moist during baking and helps them cook evenly.

The step that matters

Baking until nicely browned. Beans need enough moisture to cook through while the surface browns. Too little water can dry and scorch the top before the beans are tender, so check the liquid level during baking.

“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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