Name: Baked Beans
Ingredients: 1 quart white beans, soaked overnight; 2 quarts water; 1 pound corned pork; 2 tablespoons molasses

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

1 quart white beans, soaked overnight
2 quarts water
1 pound corned pork
2 tablespoons molasses

Directions

Boil the soaked beans in 2 quarts of water for 1 hour.
Add the corned pork and boil for an additional 30 minutes.
Remove the beans and pork, and place them in a baking dish.
Score the pork and place it in the center of the beans.
Pour the molasses over the beans.

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.

Beans + porktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,000 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beans + molassestop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together491 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Pork + molassestop 34% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together825 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).