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Baked Pork and Beans

A slow‑cooked dish of navy beans with salt pork, molasses, 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 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 ↓

Baked 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. Pick over the beans and soak them overnight in cold water.

  2. In the morning, drain the beans and boil them in cold water until tender, about 1 hour.

  3. Drain the beans again and place them in an earthen pot.

Bake

  1. Score the skin of the salt pork in small squares and bury it in the beans, leaving the rind exposed.

  2. Cover the beans completely with boiling water.

  3. Stir in the salt and molasses.

  4. Cover the pot and bake slowly at 300°F (150°C) for at least 5 hours, renewing the water if it evaporates.

  5. Remove the cover 1 hour before done to allow the pork 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

Navy beans
Form the bulk of the dish and soften into a tender, creamy texture as they bake.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor, and its scored rind crisps and browns in the oven.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and deep color, and helps the sauce darken as it bakes.

The step that matters

Remove the cover 1 hour before done. Uncovering too early leaves the pork pale and the sauce watery, while uncovering at the right time lets the surface brown and the liquid reduce.

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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