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Boston Baked Beans

A baked bean dish with pork chops, molasses, and salt, simmered slowly for hours.

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 ↓

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.

Soak and parboil

  1. Rinse the beans and cover them with cold water; soak overnight.

  2. In the morning, drain the beans and cover with fresh water.

  3. Add baking soda and heat slowly, keeping below boiling point for 2 hours; then drain.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place the beans in a bean pot with coarse sea salt and pork chops scattered throughout.

  2. Mix molasses with hot water and pour over the beans until covered.

  3. Bake slowly at 300°F (150°C) for 8 to 10 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. 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

Dried beans
Form the bulk of the dish and become tender and creamy during the long bake.
Baking soda
Raises the pot's alkalinity, helping the beans soften during the slow heating.
Pork chops
Add savory meat flavor and fat that seasons the beans as they bake.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color and a deep caramel flavor to the sauce as it bakes.

The step that matters

Keep the beans below boiling during the 2-hour heating. At a rolling boil, bean skins burst and the beans break apart and turn mushy. A gentle simmer lets them soften while staying intact.

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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