Name: Baked Beans
Ingredients: 1 lb. salt pork; 1 tsp. mustard; 1 c. molasses; 1 c. boiling water; California pea beans (or kidney/yellow-eyed beans)

Why it works: Mustard and beans match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 852 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Baked Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Pick over and wash the beans, then soak them overnight.
Drain the beans and parboil in freshly boiling water until soft enough to pierce with a pin.
Drain and place the beans in a bean pot, burying the salt pork in them.
Mix the salt and mustard, then add the molasses and 1 cup of boiling water, and pour over the beans.
Add enough more boiling water to cover the beans and keep them covered until the last hour.
In the last hour, draw the pork to the surface and let it brown a little.
Bake for 6 to 8 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.

Mustard + beanstop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together852 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pork + beanstop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,000 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pork + mustardtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,445 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Mustard + molassestop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together468 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Molasses + beanstop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together491 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).