Why it works: Beans and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,242 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓
Boston Baked Beans
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the beans
Wash the beans and pick over them.
Soak the beans in fresh cold water overnight.
Drain the beans.
Cover the beans with fresh water.
Bring the water to a boil.
Simmer until the skins crack.
Discard the tested beans.
Drain the remaining beans.
Prepare the pork and pot
Scald the pork rind.
Scrape the pork rind.
Cut two ¼-inch slices of the rind.
Place the slices in the bottom of a bean pot.
Peel the onion.
Slice the onion over the pork.
Score the remaining pork rind every ½ inch, making 1-inch deep incisions.
Add the beans to the pot.
Bury the pork in the beans, leaving only the rind exposed.
Bake
In a bowl, mix the salt, molasses, sugar, and boiling water.
Pour the mixture over the beans.
Fill the pot with boiling water until it bubbles among the beans.
Cover the pot.
Bake at 300°F (150°C) for 6 to 8 hours.
Remove the cover for the last 30 minutes to brown the beans and crisp the pork rind.
Add more water as necessary during baking.
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 + oniontop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,242 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,214 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
-
Beans + porktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,000 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
-
Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,225 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Beans + molassestop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Pea beans
- Form the bulk of the dish and become soft and creamy during long baking.
- Salt pork
- Adds fat and savory flavor that seeps into the beans, and its rind crisps on top.
- Molasses
- Adds dark sweetness and color and helps the beans brown during baking.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness that balances the salt and molasses.
The step that matters
Keep the beans covered with water during baking. Dry beans can toughen and scorch as they bake for hours. Adding water as needed keeps them moist so they cook evenly and become tender.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, pork, molasses, sugar):
- Sweet potatofits better
- Mustardfits better
- Capsicumfits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against beans, pork, molasses, 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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