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Baked Beans

A dish of soaked beans cooked with molasses, mustard, salt, salt pork, and baked in hot water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the beans overnight.

  2. In the morning, parboil the beans with baking soda.

  3. Drain the beans and mix in molasses, mustard, and salt.

Bake

  1. Add the salt pork and place everything in a jar.

  2. Cover with hot water and bake for 5 to 6 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 + 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. Mustard + porktop 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

Dried beans
Form the bulk of the dish and become tender during the long soak and bake.
Baking soda
Raises the pot's alkalinity during parboiling, helping the beans soften.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and dark color, and deepens the flavor during slow baking.
Salt pork
Contributes fat and savory flavor that seasons the beans as they bake.

The step that matters

Parboiling the beans with baking soda. Baking soda raises the pH, which helps the bean skins and interiors soften. Too much can give a soapy taste or mushy texture, so measure it carefully and drain the beans before adding molasses.

“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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