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Baked Beans

A baked bean dish with navy beans, salt pork, tomatoes, onions, molasses, syrup, sugar, and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Baked Beans

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 navy beans in water overnight.

  2. Drain the beans.

  3. Cover the beans with fresh water.

  4. Add the baking soda and the salt pork.

  5. Boil the beans for 30 minutes.

  6. Drain the beans.

  7. Place the beans in a small roasting pan.

Make the sauce

  1. Combine the tomatoes and chopped onion in a pot.

  2. Boil the mixture for 20 minutes.

  3. Strain the mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Add the strained mixture to the beans along with the molasses, syrup, sugar, and mustard.

  2. Mix everything together.

  3. Bake for 1.5 hours at 350°F (175°C).

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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  4. Syrup + sugartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Beans + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,242 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 and starchy texture of the finished dish.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory depth that carries through the long bake.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and body to the sauce that coats the beans.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and a deep, caramel-like flavor during baking.
Syrup
Adds sweetness and helps the sauce thicken and brown in the oven.
Baking soda
Raises the pH of the soaking water, helping the bean skins soften.

The step that matters

Boil the beans until tender before adding the sauce. Sugars and acids in the tomatoes and molasses toughen bean skins and slow softening. Beans that are not fully tender after the initial boil will stay firm even after the long bake.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, pork, tomato, molasses, syrup, 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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