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Baked Beans with Pork

A baked bean dish cooked with pork, brown sugar, molasses, mustard, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 with Pork

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°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

  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.

Simmer

  1. Add the pork, brown sugar, molasses, mustard, black pepper, and salt.

  2. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 2 hours.

Bake

  1. Transfer to a baking dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour, until the beans are tender.

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 + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 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

Navy beans
Form the bulk of the ddish and become tender and creamy as they cook.
Pork
Adds savoury, meaty flavour and fat that enriches the beans as they cook.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and caramelised depth during the long cooking and baking.
Molasses
Adds dark colour, sweetness and a rich, slightly bitter flavour.
Mustard
Adds a sharp, tangy note that balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Simmer until the beans are nearly tender before baking. Dried beans contain starches that soften slowly, and sugar and salt added early can toughen skins if cooking is rushed. Simmering first lets the beans soften fully so the oven stage mainly thickens and deepens the sauce.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Beansthe original
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Sesamefits less well
  4. Lentilsfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, sugar, molasses, 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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