Name: Simcoe Baked Beans
Ingredients: 2 cups dried navy beans; 1 onion, chopped; 1 can (15 oz) tomato sauce; ¼ cup brown sugar; 2 tablespoons mustard; 1 teaspoon salt; ¼ teaspoon black pepper; 2 cups water

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 ↓

Simcoe Baked Beans

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the beans

Soak the beans overnight in water. Drain and rinse the beans.

Cook and serve

In a pot, combine the beans, onion, tomato sauce, brown sugar, mustard, salt, black pepper, and water.
Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 1.5 to 2 hours until beans are tender.
Serve hot.

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.

Beans + tomatotop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,713 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beans + mustardtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together852 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,259 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beans + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,242 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + peppertop 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 main body of the dish and become tender and creamy during long simmering.
Tomato sauce: Supplies acidity and liquid that help form the thick, savory sauce around the beans.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness and depth that balances the acidity of the tomato sauce.
Mustard: Adds sharpness and a tangy aroma that complements the sweetness.

The step that matters

Simmer until the beans are tender. Dried beans need long, gentle simmering to soften fully. Cutting the time short leaves them firm, and boiling hard can break the skins and make the sauce cloudy.

Swap the onion

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

Capsicumfits better
Lettucefits better
Horseradishfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, tomato, sauce, sugar, mustard, pepper. 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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Cream of Tomato Soup107 recipes

Tomato Bisque61 recipes

Cream Tomato Soup28 recipes

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Simcoe Baked Beans