Name: Baked Beans
Ingredients: 1 quart of beans; Coarse sea salt (to taste); Bacon or ham (to taste); 1 teaspoon mustard; 1 tablespoon molasses; Boiling water (as needed)

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

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.

Prepare the beans

Pick through the beans to remove stones and dirt.
Wash and soak the beans in cold water overnight.
In the morning, drain the water and cover the beans with hot water.
Add a little coarse sea salt and bacon or ham, then cook until the beans begin to split open.

Layer and bake

Pour half of the beans into a deep earthen crock, add the bacon, then layer the remaining beans on top.
Mix the mustard and molasses with a little water, then pour this mixture over the beans.
Add boiling water to just cover the beans.
Bake at 300°F (150°C) for ten hours, adding a little water as needed.

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.

Beans + mustardtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together852 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Ham + mustardtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together747 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Beans + hamtop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together140 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).
Mustard + molassestop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together468 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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: Provide the bulk of the dish and, once cooked and baked slowly, a soft, creamy texture.
Molasses: Adds sweetness and a dark color, and deepens the flavor during long baking.
Mustard: Adds a sharp, savory bite that balances the sweetness of the molasses.
Bacon or ham: Adds savory, smoky fat and meaty flavor that seasons the beans as they bake.

The step that matters

Bake at 300°F (150°C) for ten hours, adding a little water as needed. Beans need long, gentle heat to become tender and creamy without bursting. The liquid can evaporate during the long bake, so topping up with water keeps the beans moist and prevents scorching on the bottom of the crock.