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Bakedibeans with Tomato Sauce

A baked bean dish with tomato sauce, pork, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 2,713 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Bakedibeans with Tomato Sauce

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

  1. Soak the beans overnight.

Make the sauce

  1. Combine the tomatoes, cloves, and onion in a pot.

  2. Cook the mixture for 30 minutes.

  3. Strain the mixture through a sieve.

  4. Make a paste with the flour and a little water.

  5. Add the vinegar, salt, brown sugar, and cayenne pepper to the paste.

  6. Cook the sauce for 10 minutes.

Bake

  1. Place the soaked beans and pork in a gallon jar.

  2. Fill the jar nearly full with water and pour the tomato sauce over the top.

  3. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for 5 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Beans + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,713 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Beans + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,242 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Small white beans
Provide the bulk and starchy body of the dish as they soften during long baking.
Tomatoes
Supply acidity and moisture that form the base of the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce into a paste-based body that clings to the beans.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the sauce caramelize slightly during long baking.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and brightens the sauce.
Pork
Adds fat and savory meaty flavor that enriches the beans as they bake.

The step that matters

Bake at 300°F for 5 hours. Long, low heat lets the beans soften fully and gradually tenderize the pork while the sauce thickens and deepens in flavor. Too high a heat can dry the beans and toughen the meat.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, tomato, clove, flour, vinegar, sugar, pepper):

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Okrabetter flavor fit
  3. Mustardbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, tomato, clove, flour, vinegar, sugar, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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