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Pork and Beans

A baked dish of white marrow beans with pickled pork, salt, sugar, and water.

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 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Pick and wash the beans in two waters, then place them in a 2.5-quart pan.

  2. Wash the pork in warm water, trim off any unfresh parts, and cut the skin in cross-bars.

  3. Place the pork in the middle of the beans, leaving the skin exposed.

  4. Add salt and sugar, then fill the pan with cold water to within ½ inch of the top.

Bake

  1. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 3.5 hours, replenishing with hot water as needed.

  2. Half an hour before done, let the water cook down and remove from oven if browned on top.

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 + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,587 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Pork + sugartop 37% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,579 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

White marrow beans
Form the bulk of the dish and soften into a tender, starchy body during long baking.
Fat, pickled pork
Adds savory richness and fat that flavors the beans, while the exposed skin browns.
White granulated sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the salt and helps the top brown.

The step that matters

Replenishing the water and cooking it down at the end. The beans must stay submerged during the long bake so they cook evenly without scorching, then the water must reduce near the end so the top browns rather than the dish staying soupy.

Swap the beans

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, sugar. 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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