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Pork and Beans

A hearty stew of beans and pickled pork flavored with mustard, pepper, and molasses.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 852 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Pork and Beans

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak the beans overnight in cold water.

  2. In the morning, wash the beans in a colander.

  3. Boil the beans in cold water; when it first boils, drain and cover with fresh boiling water.

Bake

  1. Score the rind of the pork.

  2. When the skin cracks on the beans, add mustard and sprinkle with pepper.

  3. Pour molasses over the top of the beans.

  4. Cover the beans with the water they were boiled in and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 6 to 8 hours.

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 + mustardtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Beans + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,733 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Beans + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Pork + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,445 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

Small beans
Form the bulk of the dish and absorb the sauce as they bake.
Pickled pork
Adds savory, salty flavor and fat that enriches the beans as they cook.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and deep color as it caramelizes slowly in the oven.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that balances the sweetness of the molasses.

The step that matters

Boil the beans until they first boil, then drain. Briefly boiling and draining removes starchy, gas-producing compounds and loosens the skins, so the beans cook evenly and stay intact during the long bake.

“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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