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Boston Pork and Beans

A stew of white beans and salt pork cooked with salt and baking soda.

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 ↓

Boston Pork and Beans

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°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. Wash the beans.

  3. Drain the beans.

  4. Boil them in plenty of cold water with a piece of baking soda the size of a bean.

  5. Drain the beans again.

  6. Cover with water.

  7. Boil for 15 minutes until the skins crack when blown upon.

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

  9. Add the salt.

  10. Cover the beans with hot water.

Add the pork and bake

  1. Scald the salt pork with hot water.

  2. Score the rind.

  3. Place the pork in the center of the pot.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for six hours or longer.

  5. Add hot water as needed to keep the beans moist.

  6. Remove the pork when it becomes crisp and looks cooked to prevent it from becoming too dry.

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).

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

What each ingredient does

Small white beans
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender and creamy during long slow cooking.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savoury flavour to the beans, and its rind crisps in the oven.
Baking soda (in the method)
Raises the cooking water's alkalinity, helping the bean skins soften during the initial boil.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the beans throughout their long cooking time.

The step that matters

Remove the pork when it becomes crisp and looks cooked. Salt pork left in the oven too long dries out and toughens. Removing it at the right point keeps it tender while the beans continue to cook in the moisture of the pot.

“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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