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Baked Beans

A baked bean dish with olives and tomato juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Olive and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,539 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Baked Beans

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Soak the beans in cold water overnight.

  2. Cook the beans in fresh water until tender but not broken.

  3. Chop the olives finely.

Bake and serve

  1. Layer the beans and chopped olives in a baking dish.

  2. Cover with the juice and add 1 cup of strained tomato juice.

  3. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for at least three hours.

  4. Season with coarse sea salt to taste.

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. Olive + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,539 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Beans + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,713 recipes

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

  3. Beans + olivetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,470 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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 hold their shape through long, slow baking.
Olives
Add a briny, savory flavor that stands out against the sweet, mild beans.
Strained tomato juice
Supplies liquid that keeps the beans moist and adds tomato flavor during baking.

The step that matters

Cooking the beans until tender but not broken. Beans soften gradually as their starch gelatinises in hot water. Cooking them only until tender leaves them intact, because they will bake for hours. Overcooked beans split and turn mushy in the oven.

Swap the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (olive, tomato):

  1. Chickpeafits about as well
  2. Beansthe original
  3. Black-eyed peafits less well
  4. Lentilsfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, tomato. 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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