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Baked Beans

A simple baked bean dish with sugar, salt, mustard, tomato sauce, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,713 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak the beans overnight in water.

  2. Drain and rinse the beans, then place them in a pot.

Simmer

  1. Add sugar, salt, mustard, tomato sauce, and water to the pot.

  2. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 2 hours.

Bake and serve

  1. Transfer to a baking dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour.

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 + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,713 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Mustard + tomatotop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,482 recipes

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

  4. Mustard + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,120 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 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

Dried beans
Provide the main body and starchy texture of the dish.
Tomato sauce
Adds acidity and flavour, and contributes to the sauce's moisture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the tomato sauce.
Mustard
Adds sharp aroma and a tangy flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer the beans until tender. Dried beans must be cooked long enough to soften fully before baking. Beans not simmered thoroughly stay firm, and adding salt and acid to the pot early can slow softening, so the simmer time matters for texture.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Welsh onionfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, sugar, mustard, sauce. 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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