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Baking

Baked Beans

A baked bean dish with boiled beans, salt, cayenne, molasses, and meat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,733 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Baked Beans

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Boil the beans until tender.

  2. Grease a baking dish.

Season and assemble

  1. Season the beans with coarse sea salt and a little Cayenne pepper.

  2. Stir in 1 tablespoon of molasses.

  3. Place the boiled meat in the center of the dish and stack the beans around it.

Bake

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 1 hour or until browned.

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 + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,733 recipes

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

  2. Beans + meattop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together369 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  3. Pepper + meattop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,777 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Pepper + molassestop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together897 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 main body of the dish and soften into a tender, starchy base.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and deep color, and helps the top brown in the oven.
Meat used for boiling
Adds savory flavor to the beans as they bake around it.

The step that matters

Bake at 400°F until browned. Beans must be fully tender before baking, since the oven mainly sets the surface and deepens color. Baking time alone does not soften undercooked beans, so check that they are tender at the start.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Beansthe original
  2. Walnutfits about as well
  3. Chestnutfits less well
  4. Sesamefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, molasses, meat. 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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