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Baked Beans

A baked bean dish with pork, molasses, and baking soda, cooked slowly in a deep dish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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

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 beans in plenty of water overnight.

  2. Change the water before cooking.

  3. Parboil the beans for 2 hours, then drain most of the water.

Bake

  1. In a deep dish, place the beans and sink the pork in the middle.

  2. Add baking soda and molasses.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for at least 6 hours, adding water as needed until the last hour.

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).

  2. Beans + molassestop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together491 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Pork + molassestop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together825 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Dried beans
Form the main body of the dish and absorb the sauce as they cook slowly.
Raw pork
Adds savoury richness and fat that flavours the beans during the long bake.
Baking soda
Raises the pot's alkalinity, helping beans soften and break down during cooking.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark colour and a deep caramel-like flavour as it bakes.

The step that matters

Adding water through the bake. Beans cooked for hours can dry out and scorch before they become tender. Topping up water as needed keeps them moist while the sauce thickens slowly.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Beansthe original
  2. Peanutfits about as well
  3. Sesamefits less well
  4. Nutsfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, molasses. 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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