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To Bake Navy Beans

A baked dish of navy beans with pork and molasses.

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 ↓

To Bake Navy Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Boil the beans in water until they begin to crack.

  2. Drain the beans using a colander.

Bake

  1. Place the pork in the center of a baking pan and surround it with the beans.

  2. Cover with water and add the molasses.

  3. Bake slowly until the pork is cooked through.

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. Pork + molassestop 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

Navy beans
Provide the main body and starchy bulk of the dish as they soften and absorb liquid.
Pork
Adds savory richness and fat that flavors the beans as they bake.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and a deep caramel-like flavor during slow baking.

The step that matters

Bake slowly until the pork is cooked through. Slow baking lets the beans soften and absorb the liquid while the pork cooks through gently. Cooking time alone cannot confirm doneness, so the pork should be checked to ensure it is fully cooked.

Swap the beans

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, 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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