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Pork and Beans

A hearty stew of pork and white beans seasoned with vinegar, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,733 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Pork and Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the beans overnight in water.

  2. Drain and place the beans in a pot with fresh water.

  3. Add the pork and bring to a boil.

Cook

  1. Reduce heat and simmer for several hours until beans are tender.

  2. Stir in vinegar, pepper, and salt before serving.

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 + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,733 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Beans + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Pork + vinegartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

What each ingredient does

White beans
Provide the main body of the dish and become tender and creamy during long simmering.
Pork
Adds savory richness and flavor to the cooking liquid as it simmers with the beans.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the richness of the pork and beans.

The step that matters

Simmer until the beans are tender. Dried beans need prolonged gentle simmering to soften fully. Stopping early leaves them firm and starchy, and boiling hard can break them apart.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Soybeanfits better
  2. Sesamefits better
  3. Beansthe original
  4. Black-eyed peafits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, vinegar, pepper. 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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