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Boston Baked Beans with Tomato Sauce

A slow‑cooked bean dish flavored with molasses, brown sugar, mustard, onion, tomato sauce, and salt pork or bacon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Boston Baked Beans with Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak the beans overnight in water.

  2. Drain and rinse the beans, then place them in a pot with 4 cups of fresh water.

  3. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 1 hour.

Make and bake the beans

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix molasses, brown sugar, salt, pepper, mustard powder, onion, and tomato sauce.

  3. Combine the cooked beans with the mixture and place in a baking dish.

  4. Top with diced salt pork or bacon.

  5. Cover and bake for 4-5 hours, stirring occasionally and adding water if necessary.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 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

Navy beans
Provide the bulk of the dish, becoming tender and creamy during long cooking.
Molasses
Adds dark sweetness, deep color and a rich, slightly bitter flavor.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the sauce thicken and caramelize as it bakes.
Salt pork or bacon
Adds fat and savory, smoky flavor that seasons the beans as it renders.

The step that matters

Cover and bake slowly, adding water as needed. Long, gentle baking lets the beans soften and absorb the sauce. If the dish dries out, the beans can scorch or stay firm, so checking and adding water keeps them moist.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, molasses, sugar, pepper, mustard, tomato, sauce. 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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