Name: Baked Beans
Ingredients: 1 quart of beans; 2 pounds of corned beef; 1 teaspoon mustard; 1 tablespoon molasses; hot water; cold water

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

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

Pick the beans.
Wash the beans.
Soak the beans in cold water overnight.
Drain the beans.
Cover the beans with hot water.
Add the corned beef to the beans.
Boil until the beans begin to split, about 30 to 60 minutes.
Drain the beans in a colander.
Rinse the beans with cold water.

Layer and bake

Layer half of the beans in a deep earthen pot.
Layer the corned beef on top of the beans.
Top with the remaining beans.
Mix the mustard and molasses with a little water. Pour the mixture over the beans.
Add boiling water to just cover the beans.
Bake at 300°F (150°C) for 10 hours, adding water occasionally.

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.

Beans + mustardtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together852 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beans + beeftop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,134 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beef + mustardtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,664 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Mustard + molassestop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together468 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Beans + molassestop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together491 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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, as they cook slowly, soften and thicken into a tender, creamy base.
Corned beef: Adds salty, savory meat flavor and fat that enriches the beans during the long bake.
Molasses: Adds sweetness and dark color, and its sugars help the beans brown during baking.
Mustard: Adds sharp, tangy flavor that balances the sweetness of the molasses.

The step that matters

Bake at 300°F (150°C) for 10 hours, adding water occasionally. Beans need long, gentle heat to turn tender and creamy. If the liquid cooks off, the beans can dry out or scorch, so topping up water keeps them moist while the starches gelatinize and the sugars caramelize slowly.