Name: Baked Beans with Pork
Ingredients: 2 cups dried navy beans; 4 cups water; 1 pound pork (salt pork or bacon); 1 onion, chopped; ¼ cup molasses; ¼ cup brown sugar; 1 teaspoon mustard; 1 teaspoon coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt'); ¼ teaspoon black pepper

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 with Pork

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the beans

Soak the beans overnight in water.
Drain and rinse the beans, then place them in a pot with 4 cups of fresh water.

Cook and serve

Add the pork, onion, molasses, brown sugar, mustard, salt, and pepper.
Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 2-3 hours until beans are tender.
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.

Beans + mustardtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together852 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,259 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beans + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,242 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

Navy beans: Provide the main body and starch that make up the dish.
Pork: Adds savory fat and meaty flavor that seasons the beans as they cook.
Molasses: Adds dark sweetness and depth of flavor to the sauce.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the sauce thicken and darken as it cooks.
Onion: Adds aromatic sweetness that mellows into the savory sauce during simmering.

The step that matters

Simmer until the beans are fully tender. Dried beans need long, gentle simmering to soften their starch fully. Stopping early leaves them firm, and boiling hard can break the skins and make the texture uneven.

Swap the onion

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

Capsicumfits better
Lettucefits better
Sweet potatofits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, pork, molasses, sugar, mustard, pepper. 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.

Pork Cake107 recipes

Roast Pork82 recipes

Molasses Sauce32 recipes

German Style String Beans7 recipes

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Baked Beans with Pork