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Baked Beans

A dish of beans cooked with salt pork and sugar, baked for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Baked Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Parboil the beans until the skins crack when blown upon.

  2. Drain the water and place the beans in a dish or pot.

Bake

  1. Wash the salt pork, slit the skin, and place it in the middle of the beans, covering it with beans except for the skin.

  2. Dissolve the sugar in enough water to cover the beans and pour it over them.

  3. Bake for 3 to 4 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 + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,587 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Pork + sugartop 37% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,579 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Beans
Form the bulk of the dish and, as they cook slowly, soften to a tender, creamy texture.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor that seasons the beans as it renders during baking.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the beans brown slightly during the long bake.

The step that matters

Parboil the beans until the skins crack. Parboiling softens the bean skins so they can crack open. If the beans are undercooked or the skins stay intact, they will stay firm and may not become tender during the long bake.

Swap the beans

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, sugar. 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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