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Yankee Baked Beans

A hearty dish of white beans cooked with pickled pork, molasses, and salt, simmered for several hours.

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 ↓

Yankee Baked Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak the beans in cold water, covering them by 2–3 inches.

  2. Boil the beans until the skin cracks when blown on.

  3. Drain the beans in a colander and rinse with cold water.

Bake

  1. Place the beans in a brown earthen pot, leaving space for the pork.

  2. Add the pork, molasses, and salt to the pot.

  3. Cover the pork with a layer of beans and fill the pot with boiling water.

  4. As the water evaporates, refill with boiling water for 5–6 hours of cooking.

  5. Ensure the beans remain moist until serving.

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

White dried beans
Form the bulk of the dish and become tender and creamy during the long cook.
Pickled or salt pork
Adds fat and savoury flavour that seasons the beans as it renders.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and a deep brown colour to the sauce.
Salt
Seasons the beans and pork and sharpens the overall flavour.

The step that matters

Keep the beans moist during the long bake. Beans that dry out during hours of baking can scorch and turn tough. Adding boiling water as it evaporates keeps the beans submerged so they cook evenly and stay tender.

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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