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Beans, Baked

A baked bean dish with pork, tomato sauce, salt, sugar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Beans, Baked

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.

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak the beans in water for 12 to 24 hours, changing the water every 6 hours.

  2. Boil the soaked beans in water for 30 minutes to 3 hours until tender.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a baking dish, layer the pork pieces, followed by the beans.

  2. Pour the tomato sauce over the beans and add salt, sugar, and spices.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1 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 + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,713 recipes

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

  2. Pork + tomatotop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,843 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Sauce + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Tomato + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,469 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 white pea or navy beans
Provide the bulk and starchy body that makes up the dish.
Pork
Adds savory fat and meaty flavor that seasons the beans as they bake.
Tomato sauce
Supplies acidity and moisture that thicken and flavor the beans during baking.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the tomato sauce.

The step that matters

Boil the soaked beans until fully tender. Beans must be fully softened before baking, because acids and sugars in the tomato sauce and the salt slow softening in the oven. Undercooked beans stay firm and chalky even after the full bake.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Mustardfits about as well
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Tomatothe original
  4. Sweet potatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, pork, sauce, 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.

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