Why it works: Cranberry and pork work together. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 123 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓
Stewed Beans
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the beans
Soak the beans in cold water overnight.
Wash the beans and place them in fresh cold water, heating until scalding hot.
Wash the beans again, rubbing them to remove hulls.
Cook
Add the beans to 3 quarts of water and simmer for 3 hours.
Boil the salt pork for 1 hour, then remove the skin.
Add the pork to the beans and let them simmer for an additional 2 hours.
Serve the pork with the beans.
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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Cranberry + porktop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together123 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Dry beans
- Form the body of the dish, softening during long soaking and simmering to a tender texture.
- Salt pork
- Adds savory fat and salty flavor that seasons the beans as they simmer.
The step that matters
Simmer the beans slowly. Beans cooked at a hard boil can break apart and turn mushy, while a gentle simmer keeps them whole and evenly tender over the long cooking time.
“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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