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Boston Baked Beans

A baked bean dish with pork, molasses, and salt cooked slowly.

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 ↓

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 the beans

  1. Pick over and wash the pea beans.

  2. Place beans in a kettle with cold water to cover.

  3. Boil until the skin cracks when blown on.

  4. Remove beans with a skimmer.

Assemble the pot

  1. Place the beans in a 2-quart bean pot.

  2. Add a little coarse sea salt. Add 1 teaspoon of molasses.

  3. Score the top of the pork. Place the pork in the middle on top of the beans.

  4. Cover with warm water.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for seven hours. Ensure the water does not boil away to keep the beans moist.

  2. When beginning to brown, cover the pot until about an hour before serving. Remove the cover to allow the beans to brown and become crispy.

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. Molasses + porktop 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

Pea beans
Form the bulk of the dish and soften into a tender, creamy texture during long baking.
Pork
Adds fat and savory flavor that seeps into the beans, and its top crisps as it browns.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and deep color, and helps give the beans their characteristic dark glaze.

The step that matters

Keep the water topped up during the long bake. Beans need enough liquid to soften fully without drying out. If the water boils away, the beans can scorch and turn dry rather than moist and tender.

Swap the beans

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, 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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