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Baked Beans

A baked bean dish with salt pork, onion, molasses, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,242 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Baked Beans

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak the beans in cold water overnight.

  2. In the morning, parboil the beans and then drain them.

Assemble and bake

  1. Cover the bottom of a bean pot with slices of salt pork.

  2. Add the quartered onion and pour in the beans.

  3. Place a piece of pork on top and add the molasses.

  4. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C), covering with water.

  5. Add more water as needed and salt to taste when half done.

  6. Mustard may be added if desired.

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 + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,242 recipes

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

  2. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Beans + molassestop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together491 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. 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, becoming tender and creamy as they cook slowly.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor that seasons the beans as it renders during baking.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and deep color to the sauce as it bakes.
Onion
Contributes aromatic flavor that mellows into the beans during long baking.

The step that matters

Keep the beans covered with water during baking. Dried beans need constant moisture to cook evenly and become tender; if they are exposed to air they can dry out, toughen, and scorch on top.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, 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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