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Baked Beans

A baked bean dish with pork, molasses, and mustard cooked in an oven.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 852 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Baked Beans

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak the beans overnight in cold water.

  2. Discard the water in the morning.

  3. Cover the beans with lukewarm water and soak for 2 hours.

  4. Drain the beans.

  5. Place the beans in a pot and cover with cold water.

  6. Boil gently until soft but not broken.

Prepare the pork

  1. Boil the pork for 10 minutes, then score the top in lines.

Bake and serve

  1. Drain the beans and place them in a baking dish.

  2. Season the beans with molasses and mustard.

  3. Bury the pork in the beans up to the rind.

  4. Cover the dish with boiling water.

  5. Cover the dish with a tin lid or a sturdy plate to retain steam.

  6. Cook in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 3 hours.

  7. Uncover and brown lightly.

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 + mustardtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pork + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,445 recipes

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

  4. Molasses + mustardtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together468 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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, once softened, give it a tender, creamy texture.
Pork
Adds savoury richness and fat that flavours the beans as they bake.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and depth, and helps the surface brown during baking.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent notes that balance the sweetness of the molasses.

The step that matters

Boil the beans gently until soft but not broken. Vigorous boiling splits the skins and breaks the beans apart. Gentle simmering softens the starch evenly so the beans stay whole through the long bake.

“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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