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Pork and Beans

A dish of beans cooked with salt pork, optionally sweetened with molasses or brown sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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

Soak and parboil

  1. Soak the beans overnight in soft water.

  2. Change the water in the morning and soak for 2 more hours.

  3. Boil the beans in cold water until soft, then drain well.

  4. Do not overcook the beans.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place the beans in a deep dish and sink the parboiled salt pork into the middle, leaving the rind visible.

  2. Score the pork.

  3. Optionally, add molasses or brown sugar before baking.

  4. Add enough boiling water to prevent scorching.

  5. Cover the dish.

  6. Bake until the dish smokes and bubbles.

  7. If baking, transfer the beans to a bake dish.

  8. Remove the cover to brown.

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

Beans
Form the bulk of the dish and absorb flavour as they soften and bake.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savoury flavour that seasons the beans as it renders during baking.
Molasses or brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown during baking.

The step that matters

Do not overcook the beans before baking. Beans that are too soft in the parboil will break down and turn mushy during the long bake. Beans should be just tender, since they keep softening in the oven.

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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