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Boston Baked Beans

A baked bean dish with navy beans, salt pork, molasses, dry mustard, and salt.

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

Boston Baked Beans

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak the navy beans overnight.

  2. Cook the beans until soft.

Bake

  1. In a pan, combine the cooked beans, salt pork, molasses, dry mustard, and salt.

  2. Cover with hot water.

  3. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for four hours, adding hot water once or twice to keep moist.

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

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

  3. Pork + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,445 recipes

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

  4. Molasses + mustardtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together468 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

Navy beans
Form the bulk of the dish and become tender and creamy as they cook.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory depth as it renders into the beans during baking.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and dark color, and helps the beans brown during long baking.
Dry mustard
Adds a sharp, aromatic note that balances the sweetness of the molasses.

The step that matters

Keeping the beans moist during the long bake. Beans baked for hours can dry out and scorch on top. Adding hot water during baking keeps the liquid level up so the beans cook evenly and stay tender.

“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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