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Boston Baked Beans

Beans cooked with salt pork, molasses, baking soda, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and pork are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,000 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Boston Baked Beans

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the beans

  1. Pick, wash, and soak the beans overnight in plenty of cold water.

  2. The next day, scald the beans with 1 teaspoon of baking soda and drain off the water twice.

Bake

  1. In a red earthen jar, layer the beans and the pork, ensuring the beans cover all but the top of the pork.

  2. Dissolve ½ cup of molasses in hot water and pour it over the beans.

  3. Cover the jar and place it in a 350°F (175°C) oven at bedtime.

  4. Leave the beans to bake overnight until morning.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Pork + molassestop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together825 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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 during the long slow bake.
Sweet salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor that seeps down into the beans as they bake.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and deep color, and helps the beans brown during baking.
Baking soda
Raises the cooking water's alkalinity, which helps the beans soften.

The step that matters

Scalding the beans with baking soda. Baking soda raises the pH of the water, which helps the bean skins soften. Draining the water twice removes compounds that can cause gas and bitterness.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Beansthe original
  2. Peanutfits about as well
  3. Sesamefits less well
  4. Nutsfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, 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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