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Kathryn's Baked Beans

A slow-cooked bean dish flavored with molasses, pepper, salt, and pork, baked overnight.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,733 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Kathryn's Baked Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rinse the beans and soak them in 2 quarts of cold water.

Cook the beans

  1. Boil the beans slowly until they pinch out of their skins.

  2. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt, then add 3 tablespoons of molasses.

  3. Let it boil, then add a pinch of baking soda.

Bake overnight

  1. Transfer the mixture to a covered pot and place a piece of pork on top.

  2. Bake overnight, ensuring the beans remain covered with water.

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

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + porktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

  4. Beans + molassestop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together491 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Pepper + molassestop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together897 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

Small beans
Form the bulk of the dish and become tender as they cook slowly.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and a deep, dark color to the beans.
Pork
Adds savory flavor and richness as it cooks with the beans.
Baking soda
Raises the pot's alkalinity, which helps the bean skins soften.

The step that matters

Keep the beans covered with water during the overnight bake. If the liquid drops below the beans, they can dry out and scorch, and the texture becomes uneven. Keeping them submerged allows them to cook slowly and evenly.

“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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