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Council Baked Beans

A baked bean dish with kidney beans, molasses, mustard, brown sugar, salt, onion, and fatty beef.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Council Baked Beans

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Soak the kidney beans in cold water overnight, then drain.

  2. Place the beans in a bean pot.

Assemble

  1. Mix the molasses, dry mustard, brown sugar, and salt together.

  2. Pour the mixture over the beans and add the onion.

  3. Place the fatty beef on top.

Bake

  1. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 6 hours, adding a little water as needed.

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. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  2. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  3. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Kidney beans + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

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

  5. Kidney beans + beeftop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together401 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

Kidney beans
Provide the main body and starchy texture of the dish.
Molasses
Adds dark color, sweetness and a deep, rich flavor during the long bake.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the sauce caramelize and thicken slightly.
Very fatty beef
Renders fat and flavor into the beans as they bake slowly.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and depth that mellows during baking.

The step that matters

Baking in a slow oven with added water. Beans must cook long enough at low heat to become fully tender and to let the sauce thicken. Sugars can scorch if the heat is too high or the liquid runs out, so water is added as needed to keep the beans moist.

Swap the kidney beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, mustard, sugar, onion, beef):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Sesamefits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Kidney beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, mustard, sugar, onion, beef. 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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