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Canadian Baked Beans

A baked bean dish with pork, butter, salt, and sweetener, cooked in a moderate oven after soaking and boiling.

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

Canadian 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 in water overnight.

  2. Boil the beans until they begin to crack.

Bake

  1. In a baking pan, place the pork and add the beans.

  2. Add salt and sweetening to taste.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for two 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 + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

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

  2. Butter + porktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Beans + buttertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,799 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Beans
Form the bulk of the dish and absorb flavour and moisture as they cook.
Pork
Adds fat and savoury flavour that seasons the beans as they bake.

The step that matters

Boil the beans until they begin to crack. Soaking and boiling soften the bean skins and starches so the beans cook through evenly in the oven. Undercooked beans stay firm and do not absorb the sauce well.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Peanutfits better
  2. Soybeanfits better
  3. Lima beansfits about as well
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pork. 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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