Kyl Haselbauer has 20 years of experience working in fine-dining and modernist kitchens, including Bar Cotto and Anchovies &amp; Olives in Seattle. He is also the owner of Bright Spot, a café and coffee shop in Seattle.

Kyl Haselbauer

There’s nothing like a pot of pork and beans.Even though the pork and beans I ate as a kid was closer to a creamy broth than anything else—the beans were blasted for so long, they’d collapse and thicken the broth—I still loved it, because it was what I wanted a comfort food to be: salty, hammy, creamy, and rich.This recipe makes a better version of pork and beans: nicely cooked corona beans, which means the big beans have been soaked and hydrated before being cooked; shreds of smoked ham hock, cooked until tender in a pressure cooker; and a few aromatic vegetables to round everything out. The real key to this recipe is the stock. Instead of tossing the ham hock cooking liquid or just using it on its own, I make a kind of double stock by adding a couple of our <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/pork-bouillon-cubes">pork bouillon cubes</a>. (The <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/chicken-bouillon-cubes">chicken</a> and <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/beef-bouillon-cubes">beef</a> ones would work, too.) Unlike some of the other recipes I developed for the cubes, here they’re being used solely as a flavor and texture bomb, since they’re packed with gelatin, all the compounds produced by Maillard browning, and MSG.To improve upon the classic pot of mush, I also add carrots to the pot toward the end of the cooking process, so they still have some texture, and sliced celery right at the end for the same reason. The result is a deeply flavorful pot of pork and beans with amazing textural variation: everything perfectly cooked and perfectly seasoned, thanks to those bouillon cubes.

Ultra-Porky Pork and Beans