Name: Baked Beans with Pork and Boston Brown Bread
Ingredients: 2 cups dried navy beans; 4 cups water; 1/2 pound salt pork; 1/4 cup molasses; 1/4 cup brown sugar; 1 teaspoon dry mustard; 1/2 teaspoon black pepper; 1/2 teaspoon coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt')

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 and Boston Brown Bread

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.
Place the drained beans in a pot with fresh water.

Cook and serve

Add the salt pork, molasses, brown sugar, dry mustard, black pepper, and coarse sea salt.
Bring the pot to a boil, then reduce heat.
Simmer for 2-3 hours until beans are tender.
Serve hot with Boston brown bread.

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).
Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,430 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beans + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,733 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beans + porktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,000 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,225 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

Navy beans: Provide the starchy body and bulk that becomes tender and creamy during long simmering.
Salt pork: Adds fat and savory flavor that carries into the beans as they cook.
Molasses: Adds dark sweetness and color, deepening the flavor of the sauce.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the cooking liquid thicken and darken.

The step that matters

Simmer gently until the beans are tender. Beans need long, low-heat cooking for their starches to soften fully. Boiling hard can break the skins and leave the beans ragged, while undercooking leaves them firm and chalky.

Swap the beans

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

Beansthe original
Chestnutfits about as well
Sesamefits less well
Lentilsfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against 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 and Boston Brown Bread