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 ↓
Baked 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
Pick and soak the beans in water overnight.
In the morning, boil the beans in a kettle of cold water until the skins begin to crack.
Add the saleratus to neutralize the beans' poisonous quality.
Drain the beans and place them in a baking dish with the sweet salt pork, slit on the rind.
Bake
Cover the pork with the beans, add salt, and enough cold water to cover them.
Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for three to four hours.
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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Beans + porktop 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 dish, becoming tender and creamy during soaking and long baking.
- Baking soda
- Raises the alkalinity of the cooking water, which helps the beans soften and their skins break down.
- Sweet salt pork
- Adds fat and savory flavor that slowly seasons the beans, and its rind bastes the dish as it bakes.
The step that matters
Adding the saleratus (baking soda). Too little or too much alkali changes how the beans soften and how the flavor turns out. Measure it carefully and add it at the boiling stage as written, so the skins crack evenly rather than the beans turning mushy or staying firm.
“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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