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Baked Beans

A baked bean dish with white beans and salt pork.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and pork are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,000 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

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

  1. Soak the beans overnight in cold water, ensuring they are fully submerged.

  2. In the morning, drain the beans and place them in a bean pot.

  3. Score the pork rind into small squares and place it in the center of the beans.

  4. Add enough water to cover the beans, then sprinkle in a little coarse sea salt.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C), replacing water as it boils away, until done.

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 + 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

White beans
Form the bulk of the dish, turning creamy and tender during long, slow baking.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor as it renders into the beans, and its rind scores help it release fat.

The step that matters

Replacing the water as it boils away. The beans must stay covered while they bake. If they are exposed to air, the surface dries, skins toughen, and the beans can scorch on the bottom of the pot.

“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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