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Baked Beans

A slow‑cooked bean dish with salt pork, molasses, and salt, baked until creamy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lima beans and pork work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 139 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Baked Beans

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the beans

  1. Pick over, wash, and soak the beans in cold water overnight.

  2. Drain the beans, add fresh water, and par-boil for 30 minutes.

  3. Place the beans in a bean crock.

Season and bake

  1. Wash and score the salt pork, then place it on top of or in the beans.

  2. Add molasses and salt.

  3. Fill the jar with hot water.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) for several hours, adding hot water as needed.

  5. Toward the end, let the beans dry out to achieve a moist and creamy texture.

  6. Add more molasses for sweeter and browner beans.

  7. Bake longer until desired color and consistency is reached.

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. Lima beans + porktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together139 recipes

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

  2. Lima beans + molassestop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together20 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Pork + molassestop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together825 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

White lima beans
Form the bulk of the dish, becoming tender and creamy as they bake slowly.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor that enriches the beans as they cook.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and deepens the color of the beans as they bake.

The step that matters

Adding hot water during the long bake. Beans absorb liquid and can scorch or dry out in a long oven bake. Keeping them covered with hot liquid lets the starches soften fully and the sauce thicken gradually, yielding a tender, creamy result.

Swap the lima beans

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

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Peanutfits better
  3. Sesamefits about as well
  4. Lima beansthe original

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

More baked beans recipes

Boston 154with Pork 8Canadian 8in Earthen Pots 3Chicago 3New England 3 See all 214 →

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