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Beans with Pork

Beans with pork is a preserved bean dish cooked with salt pork, sugar, pepper, and caramel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Beans with Pork

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Select and clean fresh pea beans. Soak 2 bushels in a solution of 2 lb salt and 12½ gal water for 12 hours, then drain.

  2. For old beans, soak for 18 to 24 hours. If desired, soak in brine for 4 to 8 hours, drain, and repeat with fresh brine.

  3. Cover beans with fresh water and soak for 4 hours, then drain again.

Fill the cans

  1. In cans, layer sliced salt pork: ½ oz in No. 1 cans, ¾ oz in No. 2 cans, and 1 oz in No. 3 cans.

  2. Fill cans ¾ full with soaked beans and add sauce made from 2 lb salt, 3 lb sugar, 4 lb ground white pepper, ½ pint caramel, and 1 ¼ gal water.

Process

  1. Process at 240 °F (115 °C): No. 1 cans for 2 hours, No. 2 cans for 2½ hours, No. 3 cans for 3 hours. For open bath (212 °F or 100 °C), double the time.

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 + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,587 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Pork + white peppertop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together791 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl butyrate (fruity, apple).

  4. Beans + white peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together87 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  5. Pork + sugartop 37% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,579 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Pea beans
Form the body of the dish; soaking softens them so they cook through during processing.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor that carries into the beans and sauce.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the salt and pepper in the sauce.
Caramel
Gives the sauce its brown color, as burnt sugar coloring.

The step that matters

Process for the time matched to each can size. Beans need sustained heat to soften fully, and larger cans heat more slowly, so each size needs its own time to reach a tender, evenly cooked result.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cuminfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, pork, sugar. 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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