Name: Recipe for Pork and Beans
Ingredients: beans; water; tomato pulp; sugar; coarse sea salt; additional water

Why it works: Beans and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,713 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Recipe for Pork and Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Pick beans free from all foreign matter and soak them in a large amount of water for about 8 hours, agitating and skimming the top occasionally.
If it's hot, add ice to keep the beans cool.
After soaking, drain the water and parboil the beans for 5 to 10 minutes.
Mix the tomato pulp, sugar, coarse sea salt, and additional water in a pot and bring to a boil.
Skim off any foam and can the sauce while it's still 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.

Beans + tomatotop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,713 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beans + sugartop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,587 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Tomato + sugartop 33% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,667 recipes

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