Why it works: Beans and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,713 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓
Baked Beans with Tomato Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the beans
Soak the white beans overnight in cold water.
In the morning, boil the beans in salted water until tender, then drain.
Place the beans in a deep dish.
Make the tomato sauce
In a saucepan, melt the butter and flour together until bubbling.
Pour in the strained tomato liquor and season to taste.
Cook gently until the sauce is quite dry.
Assemble and broil
Transfer the mixture to a bowl wet with hot water, press down firmly, and invert onto a hot platter.
Cover the mound with grated cheese.
Brush the cheese with beaten egg white and sift more grated cheese on top.
Place under the broiler to slightly color the cheese.
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.
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Beans + tomatotop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,713 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,962 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Beans + flourtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,080 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Tomato + cheesetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,896 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- White beans
- Form the bulk of the dish and hold their shape when cooked until tender.
- Butter
- Enriches the sauce and carries flavor through the butter-flour base.
- Flour
- Thickens the tomato liquor into a sauce that can hold its shape when inverted.
- Strained tomato liquor
- Provides the liquid base and tomato flavor for the sauce.
- Grated cheese
- Melts and browns under the broiler to form a golden top.
- Egg white
- Brushed on the cheese to help the topping set and brown evenly.
The step that matters
Cook the sauce until quite dry. The sauce must thicken enough to hold its shape when the mixture is inverted onto the platter. Too much liquid left behind makes the mound spread and slump, so the sauce needs to be reduced fully before assembly.
Swap the tomato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, butter, flour, cheese, egg):
- Asparagusfits better
- Chivefits better
- Welsh onionfits better
- Tomatothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against beans, butter, flour, cheese, egg. 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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