Skip to main content
Main

Shelled Beans

Beans boiled with salt pork, seasoned with salt, butter, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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

Cook the pork and beans

  1. Cut the salt pork into strips.

  2. Boil the pork in a kettle for 30 minutes.

  3. Add the shelled beans and boil until tender.

  4. Let the water boil down nearly to dryness.

Season and finish

  1. Add coarse sea salt a few minutes before removing from heat.

  2. Season with butter and cream to taste.

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
Renders fat and seasons the cooking water with savory, smoky flavor.
Shelled beans
Provide the main body and starch, softening into a tender, hearty texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness that smooths the flavor and mouthfeel at the end.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, creating a silkier, rounder finish.

The step that matters

Let the water boil down nearly to dryness. As liquid reduces, the beans and pork flavors concentrate, but the pot can scorch and stick near the bottom. Watch closely and stir so the beans stay intact and the base does not burn.

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.

You might also like

Pork CakePork Cake107 recipesRoast PorkRoast Pork82 recipesGerman Style String BeansGerman Style String Beans7 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipes