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Shelled Beans

A boiled bean dish with salt pork, sea salt, butter, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Shelled Beans

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cut the salt pork into strips.

  2. Place the pork in a kettle and boil for 30 minutes.

  3. Add the shelled beans and continue boiling until tender.

  4. Allow the water to boil down nearly completely.

  5. Add salt a few minutes before removing from heat.

  6. Season with butter and cream if desired.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Pork + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,093 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Beans + buttertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,799 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Salt pork
Adds savory fat and flavor to the cooking water as it simmers.
Shelled beans
Form the main body of the dish and soften into tender pieces during boiling.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the finished beans.
Cream
Adds richness and body, softening the flavor of the reduced cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Add salt a few minutes before removing from heat.. Salt added at the end seasons the reduced liquid without making the beans tough, while salt added early can slow softening of the bean skins. Tasting near the end lets the cook adjust seasoning accurately.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Peanutfits better
  3. Filbertfits about as well
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, butter, cream. 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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