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Baked Beans

A slow‑cooked bean dish with salt pork, molasses, mustard, sugar, and onion.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 852 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Baked Beans

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Pick the beans and soak them overnight in water.

Assemble

  1. In a bean jar, place half the pork and the onion.

  2. Pour in half the beans, then add the remaining pork and the rest of the beans.

  3. Stir in the molasses, mustard, and sugar.

  4. Cover with boiling water.

Bake

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 6 to 7 hours.

  2. Keep the beans covered with water until the last hour.

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 + mustardtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 recipes

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

  2. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  5. Beans + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,000 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

Beans
Form the main body of the dish and become tender and creamy during the long bake.
Salt pork
Renders fat and salty, savory flavor into the beans as it cooks.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and a dark color to the sauce.
Mustard
Adds a sharp tang that balances the sweetness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the sauce brown as it bakes.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and flavor to the beans.

The step that matters

Keep the beans covered with water until the last hour. Beans need enough liquid to cook evenly and absorb flavor over a long bake. If they dry out and are exposed to the oven air, the outer beans can toughen and the sauce can scorch or thicken unevenly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, pork, molasses, mustard, sugar):

  1. Lettucefits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, pork, molasses, mustard, sugar. 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.

More baked beans recipes

Boston 154with Pork 8Canadian 8in Earthen Pots 3Chicago 3New England 3 See all 214 →

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