Skip to main content
Main

Boston Baked Beans

A baked bean dish with white peas, molasses, mustard, salt pork, baked slowly in an earthen pot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak the beans in water overnight, then cover with fresh water.

  2. In the morning, boil the beans until easily crushed but still intact.

  3. Drain the beans and place them in an earthen pot.

Season and bake

  1. Add salt, molasses, mustard, and baking soda to the pot.

  2. Score the salt pork and place it on top of the beans.

  3. Bake uncovered in a 350°F (175°C) oven all day, keeping the beans moist.

  4. At night, remove the pork, cover the pot, and bake overnight with the fire checked.

  5. Reheat the pork in the morning and serve on top of the beans.

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. Mustard + porktop 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

White pea beans
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender and creamy as they cook slowly.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and dark color, and helps the beans brown during long baking.
Salt pork
Releases fat and flavor into the beans as it bakes, adding richness.
Baking soda
Raises the pot's alkalinity, which helps the bean skins soften during cooking.

The step that matters

Keeping the beans moist during the all-day bake. Beans dry out and toughen if the liquid evaporates during long uncovered baking. Keeping them moist lets the starches soften fully and the flavors blend.

“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.

You might also like

Pork CakePork Cake107 recipesRoast PorkRoast Pork82 recipesMolasses SauceMolasses Sauce32 recipesGerman Style String BeansGerman Style String Beans7 recipes