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Boston Baked Beans

A baked bean dish with white beans, smoked ham, salt, pepper, mustard, molasses, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Put the beans in a bean jar and parboil them.

  2. Drain off the water.

  3. Add the ham, salt, pepper, ground mustard, and molasses.

  4. Cover with plenty of water.

Bake

  1. Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven for 24 to 36 hours.

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. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  3. Beans + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,733 recipes

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

  4. Ham + mustardtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together747 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Beans + hamtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together140 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Small white beans
Provide the bulk and starchy body that softens into a creamy, tender texture during long baking.
Ham
Adds fat and smoky, savoury flavour that seasons the beans as they cook.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and dark colour, and deepens the flavour of the baked beans.

The step that matters

Long, low baking. A slow bake at a low temperature lets the starch in the beans soften fully and absorb the molasses and ham flavours. Cooking too hot or too briefly leaves the beans firm and underflavoured.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Beansthe original
  2. Lentilsfits about as well
  3. Black-eyed peafits less well
  4. Chestnutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, pepper, mustard, 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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