Skip to main content
Main

Baked Beans

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Baked Beans

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Pick and soak the beans overnight in plenty of water.

  2. In the morning, drain the water and place the beans in a bean pot.

  3. Add cold water to the pot, filling it to cover the beans.

  4. Scrape the rind of the salt pork, score it, and place it in the pot on top of the beans.

Bake

  1. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 5-6 hours, adding hot water as needed.

  2. For a reddish color, stir in 1-2 tablespoons of molasses.

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. Beans + molassestop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together491 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 beans
Form the bulk of the dish, becoming tender and creamy as they cook slowly in liquid.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor that seasons the beans as it renders during baking.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and deep color, giving the beans their reddish tint.

The step that matters

Adding hot water as needed during the long bake. Beans absorb liquid as they cook for hours; if the pot runs dry they can scorch and toughen. Keeping them covered with liquid lets the starches soften evenly.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Beansthe original
  2. Peanutfits about as well
  3. Sesamefits less well
  4. Nutsfits less well

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 →

You might also like

Pork CakePork Cake107 recipesRoast PorkRoast Pork82 recipesMolasses SauceMolasses Sauce32 recipesGerman Style String BeansGerman Style String Beans7 recipes