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Baked Beans

A dish of boiled beans cooked with salt pork, molasses, and water, baked slowly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and beans 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 ↓

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

  1. In a bean pot or deep stone jar, place the salt pork and molasses.

  2. Fill the pot with boiled beans, leaving three inches from the top.

  3. Pour in enough cooking water to cover the beans.

Bake and finish

  1. Cover the pot with a lid and place it in a 300°F (150°C) oven.

  2. Bake for 6 to 12 hours, adding water as needed.

  3. For variation, substitute butter or add sweet cream an hour before baking is complete.

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. Pork + beanstop 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. Molasses + beanstop 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

Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor as it renders into the beans during the long bake.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and dark color, and helps the beans brown slowly in the oven.
Beans
Form the body of the dish, becoming tender and creamy during the slow baking.

The step that matters

Keeping the beans covered with liquid. Adding water as needed during the long bake keeps the beans from drying out and scorching, so they stay moist and tender.

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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