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Creole Beans and Bacon

A baked dish of soaked red beans, bacon, onion, and seasonings, simmered and then baked until the liquid is nearly absorbed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,242 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Creole Beans and Bacon

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

  1. Soak the beans overnight.

  2. Cook the beans according to the recipe for Pork and Beans.

Prepare the bacon

  1. Leave the bacon in one square piece.

  2. When the bacon is tender, remove it and set aside.

Bake and serve

  1. Once the beans are very tender, place the bacon in the center of a baking dish.

  2. Drain the beans and arrange them around the bacon.

  3. Fill the dish with the liquid from cooking the beans until it reaches the top of the beans.

  4. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1 to 2 hours, until the liquid is nearly absorbed.

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 + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,242 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Red beans
Form the body of the dish and, as they cook, release starch that thickens the liquid.
Bacon
Adds smoky, savory fat that flavors the beans as it renders and softens during baking.

The step that matters

Fill the dish with the liquid from cooking the beans until it reaches the top of the beans.. The cooking liquid must cover the beans so they stay moist while baking. As the liquid slowly absorbs, its starch thickens and the beans take on flavor, so too little liquid leaves them dry.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, pepper. 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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