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Pressed Beans and Sausage

A baked bean and sausage loaf pressed into a shape, served hot with ketchup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,713 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Pressed Beans and Sausage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak the pea beans overnight in soft water.

  2. Wash and drain the beans.

  3. Cook the beans in boiling water until very tender, changing the water at least twice.

Bake

  1. Place the beans in a baking dish.

  2. Add links of sausage throughout the beans.

  3. Dissolve salt in a quart of boiling water and pour the salted water over the beans.

  4. Add more water to cover the beans if needed.

  5. Bake for 5 to 6 hours.

Serve and press

  1. Serve hot with tomato ketchup.

  2. Press leftovers into an oval-shaped dish, using a weight if necessary.

  3. Refrigerate until cold.

  4. Turn out from the dish and cut into slices.

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 + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,713 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + ketchuptop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together754 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Beans + ketchuptop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together33 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Pea beans
Provide the bulk and starch that soften into a tender, creamy body during long cooking.
Sausage
Adds fat and savory, smoky flavor that seasons the beans as it bakes.
Salt
Seasons the beans and water throughout the long cooking.

The step that matters

Cook the beans until very tender. Dried beans must be fully softened before baking, because the long oven time will not reliably soften beans that are still firm. Changing the cooking water helps remove compounds that cause gas and off-flavors.

“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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