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Baked Beans

A baked bean dish with corned beef, mustard, and molasses.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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

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. Pick and wash the beans.

  2. Soak the beans in cold water overnight.

  3. Drain the beans and cover them with hot water.

  4. Add the corned beef and boil until the beans begin to split, about 30 to 60 minutes.

  5. Drain the beans in a colander and rinse with cold water.

Assemble

  1. Layer half of the beans in a deep pot.

  2. Add the corned beef.

  3. Top with the remaining beans.

  4. Mix the mustard and molasses with a little water.

  5. Pour the mixture over the beans.

  6. Add boiling water to just cover the beans.

Bake

  1. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for 10 hours.

  2. Add water occasionally.

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 + mustardtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 recipes

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

  2. Beans + beeftop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,134 recipes

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

  3. Beef + mustardtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,664 recipes

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

  4. Mustard + molassestop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together468 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Beans + molassestop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together491 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

Beans
Form the bulk of the dish and soften into a creamy texture during long cooking.
Corned beef
Adds savory, salty meaty flavor that seasons the beans as they cook.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and dark color, and deepens flavor during the long bake.
Mustard
Adds a sharp note that balances the sweetness of the molasses.

The step that matters

Add water occasionally. Ten hours in the oven slowly evaporates liquid, and beans left exposed can dry out and stick. Topping up the water keeps them moist and tender.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, beef, 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.

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