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Baked Beans

A dish of beans cooked with bacon, molasses, mustard, and water.

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

Prepare the beans

  1. Pick over beans to remove dirt and stones, wash and soak in cold water overnight.

  2. Drain beans.

  3. Cover beans with boiling water.

  4. Boil for about 1 hour until skins split.

  5. Drain water again.

Bake

  1. In a bean pot, layer beans and pork slices alternately until filled.

  2. Mix molasses and mustard with a little water. Pour mixture over beans.

  3. Add boiling water to cover beans.

  4. Bake for 8 to 10 hours, adding more water occasionally as needed.

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 + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

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

  3. Pork + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,445 recipes

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

  4. Molasses + mustardtop 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
Provide the main body and starchy structure of the dish.
Bacon or salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor that seeps into the beans during slow baking.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and deep color while contributing to browning during long baking.
Mustard
Adds a sharp, tangy note that balances the sweetness of the molasses.

The step that matters

Keep the beans covered with water while baking. Beans that dry out during the long bake can toughen and scorch on top. Adding water as needed keeps them tender and helps the sauce thicken gradually.

“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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