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New England Baked Beans

A baked bean dish with navy beans, salt pork, molasses, butter, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

New England 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

  1. Soak the beans overnight.

  2. In the morning, drain the beans and cover them with cold water.

  3. Cook the beans until they crack open.

Bake

  1. Drain the water, then add the salt pork, molasses, butter, and enough water to cover the beans.

  2. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for 7 to 10 hours, keeping the beans moist with water.

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. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Beans + buttertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,799 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Beans + molassestop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together491 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Molasses + buttertop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,123 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

White navy beans
Provide the bulk of the dish, becoming tender and creamy as they cook slowly.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor that seasons the beans as they bake.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and deep color, and helps the beans brown during slow baking.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the beans a smoother, rounder mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Keeping the beans moist during the long bake. Beans baked for hours can dry out and scorch on top if the liquid drops too low. Keeping them covered with water lets the starches soften fully and the sauce thicken gradually into a glossy coating.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Beansthe original
  2. Peanutfits about as well
  3. Almondfits about as well
  4. Lima beansfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, molasses, butter. 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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