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Boston Baked Beans

A hearty bean dish simmered with salt pork and molasses.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and pork are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,000 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Boston 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

  1. Pick over and wash the beans, then soak them in 1 quart of tepid water overnight.

  2. Drain the beans.

  3. Place the beans in a kettle with 2 quarts of water.

  4. Boil the beans for 30 to 45 minutes until the skins begin to crack.

  5. Skim the beans out of the water and transfer them to a bean pot.

Bake

  1. Score the salt pork into small squares and place it in the center of the beans, sinking it to the rind.

  2. Pour 1 quart of hot water over the beans, add 1.5 tablespoons of molasses, cover the pot, and bake at 300°F (150°C) for 3 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. Beans + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. 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

Small white beans
Form the body of the dish, becoming tender and creamy as they soften during soaking, boiling and baking.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor that slowly renders into the beans during the long bake.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and deep color, and contributes to the characteristic browned surface of the beans.

The step that matters

Boiling the beans until the skins begin to crack. Boiling only until the skins just begin to split lets the beans cook partway while keeping their shape. Overboiling causes them to break apart before the long bake, leaving mushy beans.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Beansthe original
  2. Peanutfits about as well
  3. Sesamefits less well
  4. Nutsfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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