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Baked Beans

A bean dish simmered with molasses, brown sugar, onion, and bacon, baked until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,242 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Baked Beans

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

  1. Soak the beans overnight in water.

  2. Drain and place beans in a pot with fresh water.

Simmer

  1. Add molasses, brown sugar, salt, pepper, and onion.

  2. Bring to a boil.

  3. Reduce heat and simmer for 2 hours.

  4. Stir in the bacon.

Bake

  1. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for 2 hours.

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

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Dried beans
Provide the main body and starchy texture of the finished dish.
Molasses
Adds dark color, deep sweetness, and a rich flavor during long cooking.
Brown sugar
Contributes sweetness and helps deepen the color and caramel notes.
Bacon
Adds fat and smoky, savory flavor that seasons the beans as it renders.
Onion
Adds savory aromatic flavor that mellows during simmering and baking.

The step that matters

Simmer until the beans are tender. Beans must be fully softened before baking, since the sugar and molasses added with the acid-free liquid can slow softening and the oven time alone will not fully cook them.

Swap the onion

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

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

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