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Boston Pork and Beans

A baked pork and bean dish simmered with mustard, celery salt, and molasses.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Boston Pork and 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.

Soak and cook the beans

  1. Soak the beans overnight in cold water.

  2. Change the water in the morning to warm.

  3. Change the water again to hot an hour later.

  4. Put the beans in boiling salted water and cook until tender but not broken.

  5. Drain the beans and place them in a deep dish or bean pot.

Bake

  1. Bury the parboiled pork in the center.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix 1 cup of boiling water with the dry mustard, celery salt (or extract), and molasses.

  3. Pour this mixture over the pork and beans.

  4. Cover the dish tightly.

  5. Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven for 4 to 6 hours, depending on the size of the pot.

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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  3. Beans + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,159 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

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

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

Dried beans
Form the bulk of the dish, becoming tender and creamy as they cook slowly.
Pork
Adds savoury richness and fat that flavours the beans during long baking.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and deep colour, and helps the sauce darken as it bakes.
Dry mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that balances the sweetness of the molasses.

The step that matters

Cover the dish tightly. A tight lid traps steam so the beans cook gently in moisture rather than drying out over the long bake.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, pork, mustard, 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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