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Pork and Beans

A hearty stew of pork and marrowfat beans simmered in water and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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

  1. Soak the beans overnight in water.

  2. Scald and scrape the rind of the pork.

Boil

  1. Boil the pork for 1 hour before adding the beans.

  2. Once the beans boil, pour off the water and add 1 gallon of fresh water.

  3. Boil the beans until tender, adding more water if necessary to prevent scorching.

  4. When the beans are thick like mashed potatoes, transfer them to a baking dish.

Bake

  1. Score the pork and place it in the center of the beans.

  2. Brown in the oven at 400°F (200°C) for 1 hour.

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. Pork + beanstop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

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

  2. Pork + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  3. Beans + milktop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,266 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Side pork
Its fat and lean meat flavor the beans and form a browned, savory crust in the oven.
Marrowfat beans
Their starch softens and thickens as they cook, giving the dish a creamy, mashed-potato body.

The step that matters

Adding more water while the beans boil. Beans are dense and their starch settles on the bottom of the pot, so they scorch easily. Adding water keeps them submerged and cooking evenly, and the beans thicken gradually as the water reduces.

Swap the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, milk):

  1. Peanutfits better
  2. Soybeanfits better
  3. Cocoafits about as well
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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