Skip to main content
Main

Baked Beans with Pork

A baked bean dish cooked with pork, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Baked Beans with Pork

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the beans

  1. Look over and wash the beans, then soak them overnight.

  2. In the morning, boil the beans in 2 quarts of cold water for 30 minutes, then drain.

  3. Add enough hot water to cover the beans and boil for another 30 minutes, draining again.

Bake

  1. Place the beans in a baking pan, add the pork (skin side up), and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until both the beans and pork are golden 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 + 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. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Dry beans
Form the bulk of the dish and soften into a tender, creamy texture when cooked.
Pork
Adds rich fat and savoury flavour, and its skin browns and crisps in the oven.

The step that matters

Parboiling and draining the beans before baking. Boiling the beans in fresh water and draining them removes compounds that cause gas and bitterness, and softening them first lets them finish tender in the oven rather than staying firm.

Swap the beans

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, 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.

You might also like

Pork CakePork Cake107 recipesRoast PorkRoast Pork82 recipesGerman Style String BeansGerman Style String Beans7 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipes