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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) · 5 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 the beans

  1. Soak the beans in cold water overnight.

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

Assemble

  1. Chop the olives finely.

  2. In a baking dish, layer the beans and chopped olives alternately.

  3. Cover with the juice and add the strained tomato juice.

  4. Salt and season to taste.

Bake

  1. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for at least three 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. 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).

  4. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Beans + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,733 recipes

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

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 during the long, slow cook.
Chopped olives
Add briny, savoury flavour that cuts through the sweetness of the beans.
Strained tomato juice
Provides moisture and acidity that flavours the beans as they bake.

The step that matters

Cook the beans until tender but not broken. Beans cooked too hard stay firm through the long bake, while overcooked beans split and turn mushy. Gentle simmering keeps the skins intact and the centres soft.

Swap the beans

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, tomato, pepper. 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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