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Pork and Beans

A baked dish of pork and beans simmered together with optional molasses.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Pork and Beans

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak the beans in 4-5 cups of water overnight.

  2. In the morning, drain the soaking water and place the beans in a saucepan with fresh water.

  3. Boil the beans for about 2 hours until tender.

Prepare the pork

  1. In a separate saucepan, boil the pork for about 1 hour, then remove the skin.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place the pork in the center of an enamel dish and cover it with the beans.

  2. Reserve 1 cup of the bean water to pour over the dish.

  3. If desired, add 1 tablespoon of molasses to the reserved bean water.

  4. Bake the dish slowly at 300°F (150°C) for 1.5 hours.

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 + molassestop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together491 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Pork + molassestop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together825 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Brown beans
Form the bulk of the dish and, once tender, give it its soft, creamy body.
Mixed pork
Provides rich flavor and fat that enriches the beans as the dish bakes.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and a deeper, darker color to the reserved bean liquid.

The step that matters

Boiling the beans until tender. Dried beans need enough time in simmering water to soften fully. Adding them to the oven underdone means they will not become tender during the slow bake, and the starches inside gelatinize only with sufficient heat and water.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Beansthe original
  2. Peanutfits about as well
  3. Sesamefits less well
  4. Nutsfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, molasses. 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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