Why it works: Pork and beans 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 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Soak the pork in cold water overnight.
Soak the beans in cold water overnight, keeping them warm by the fire or in the chimney corner.
In the morning, rinse the beans in a colander.
Cook
Score the rind of the pork and place it in a pot with cold water.
Boil the pork until tender, skimming off the fat.
In another pot, boil the beans until they burst.
Once the beans are soft, remove them and place the pork in a tin pan.
Bake and serve
Cover the pork with the beans and add a little water.
Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until brown.
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.
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Pork + beanstop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Pickled pork
- Provides savoury flavour and fat that enriches the beans and the baked dish.
- Dried beans
- Form the bulk of the dish and turn soft and creamy when long-simmered.
The step that matters
Baking until brown. Baking in a dry oven after the beans are cooked lets surface moisture evaporate and sugars and proteins brown, forming flavour. Too little water or too long a bake can dry the dish out.
“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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