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Baked Beans

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and mustard 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

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 navy beans overnight.

  2. In the morning, wash the beans, discarding any imperfect ones.

  3. Cover the beans with plenty of water and add baking soda.

  4. Boil slowly until tender.

  5. Pour off the water and place the beans in a baking dish.

Bake

  1. Add salt, mustard, cayenne pepper, molasses, and salt pork.

  2. Cover with water.

  3. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for 1½ to 2 hours, adding hot water as needed to keep moist.

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 + mustardtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 recipes

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

  2. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  3. Beans + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,733 recipes

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

  4. Beans + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

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

  5. Mustard + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,445 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

Navy beans
Form the main body of the dish and set its tender, creamy texture when cooked.
Baking soda
Raises the cooking water's pH, helping the beans soften more fully during boiling.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and deep color, and helps the sauce brown during long baking.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor that slowly melts into the beans as they bake.

The step that matters

Keeping the beans moist while baking. Beans absorb liquid and can dry out or scorch during a long, low bake. Adding hot water as needed keeps them tender and prevents the sauce from over-reducing.

“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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