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Baked Beans. — Mrs. Sophia Wright

A baked bean dish with salt pork, sugar, mustard, and seasonings.

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

Baked Beans. — Mrs. Sophia Wright

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak the beans overnight in plenty of water.

  2. Drain the beans.

  3. Boil the beans in cold water, then turn off the water.

  4. Cover the beans with hot water.

  5. Add the salt pork.

  6. Cook until tender.

Bake

  1. Transfer the beans to a large pan.

  2. Place the pork in the center of the pan.

  3. Season with pepper, coarse sea salt (if needed), sugar, and dry mustard.

  4. Bake for 3 to 4 hours, adding water as needed.

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. Mustard + peppertop 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. Beans + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

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

  5. Pork + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,445 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

Small white beans
Provide the main body and starchy texture that becomes creamy during slow cooking.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor that seasons the beans as they bake.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the sauce brown and thicken during long baking.

The step that matters

Adding water during the bake. Beans keep absorbing liquid in a long, dry oven heat. Without added water they can dry out, toughen the skins, and stop softening evenly, so the liquid level needs checking throughout.

Swap the beans

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, sugar, mustard, pepper. 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.

More baked beans recipes

Boston 154with Pork 8Canadian 8in Earthen Pots 3Chicago 3New England 3 See all 214 →

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