Skip to main content
Main

Baked Beans

A baked bean dish with beans, bacon or pork, onion, treacle, pepper, water, and tomato puree.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Beans and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,713 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

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. Wash the beans and place them in a large earthenware jar with the bacon or pork.

  2. Peel the onion and add it to the jar.

  3. Mix the water and treacle and add the pepper.

  4. Pour the mixture over the beans.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover the jar and bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for eight hours.

  2. After baking, remove the beans from the jar.

  3. Mix in the tomato puree.

  4. Serve hot.

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 + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,713 recipes

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

  2. Beans + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,242 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. Onion + porktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 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

Beans
Form the bulk of the dish and become tender during the long, slow bake.
Bacon or pork
Adds fat and savory flavor that seasons the beans as they cook.
Treacle
Adds dark sweetness and color to the sauce.
Tomato puree
Adds acidity, body and tomato flavor to the finished beans.

The step that matters

Long, slow baking. Dried beans need a long, gentle bake to soften fully and absorb the sauce. Cooking too hot can toughen the skins or split the beans before they become creamy inside.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, pepper, pork, tomato. 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

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesPork CakePork Cake107 recipesRoast PorkRoast Pork82 recipes