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 ↓
Bean Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Place the pickled pork in a pot with 2 quarts of water.
In another pot, add 1 quart of picked and washed dried beans.
Once the beans begin to boil, drain them in a colander.
Cook
Add the drained beans to the pot with the pork and cover with water.
Boil until the beans are soft.
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
- Dried beans
- Form the main body of the soup, and their starch softens and thickens the broth as they cook.
- Pickled pork
- Adds salty, savory flavor and some fat to the broth as it simmers.
The step that matters
Drain the beans once they begin to boil. Beans release starch, foam and loose skins during the first boil. Draining them and cooking in fresh water keeps the broth cleaner and less cloudy.
“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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