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Tomato Baked Beans

A baked bean dish with tomatoes, salt pork, sugar, and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Tomato Baked Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the beans overnight.

Cook and bake

  1. In a pot, add the soaked beans, salt pork, tomatoes, salt, sugar, and mustard.

  2. Cover with water, adding hot water as it boils down.

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

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

  4. Tomato + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,482 recipes

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

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

Dried beans
Provide the bulk and starchy body that becomes tender and creamy during slow cooking.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory depth that carries into the cooking liquid and flavors the beans.
Tomatoes
Add acidity, moisture, and a rich tomato flavor that thickens as the liquid reduces.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the tomatoes.
Mustard
Adds a sharp, tangy note that brightens the sweet and savory flavors.

The step that matters

Cover with water, adding hot water as it boils down. Keeping the beans fully submerged lets them cook evenly and prevents them from drying out or scorching. Adding hot water keeps the pot at a steady simmer, so the cooking does not stall and the beans soften at a consistent rate.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Lettucefits better
  2. Welsh onionfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, pork, sugar, mustard. 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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