Boston Baked Beans

As tradition built it

Boston Baked Beans

Bake at 300°F for five to seven hours

Ingredients

• 1 lb dried beans, ideally Jacob's Cattle
• 1/2 tsp salt pork, scored
• 3 tbsp molasses
• 3 tbsp brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp dry mustard
• 1/2 tsp salt
• to cover, topped up as needed boiling water

Method

1. Soak the dried beans, ideally Jacob's Cattle, overnight, a minimum of twelve hours.
2. Parboil the beans the next morning until the skins crack.
3. Sit the scored salt pork atop the beans in the pot.
4. Dissolve the molasses, brown sugar, dry mustard and salt in boiling water and pour it over.
5. Bake at 300°F for five to seven hours, topping up with boiling water periodically so the beans stay covered throughout.

Notes

The dish's whole existence is tied to Puritan Sabbath observance: set to cook Saturday, eaten Sunday, no labour required on the day itself, served alongside steamed brown bread.

What a modern chef changes

The molasses glaze treated as a house gastrique

Cross-refs Rung 03, molasses reduction

Method

1. Render the salt pork separately sous vide at a low, steady temperature first, rendering out a clean, consistent fat with none of the scorching a direct bake against the pot's base can cause, then fold that fat back through the beans only at the final stage.
2. Reduce the molasses and mustard glaze on its own in a wide pan to a genuine syrup consistency before it ever meets the beans, concentrating it the way this chapter's technique ladder already treats molasses reduction as a house gastrique.
3. Finish the dish uncovered under the Big Green Egg's direct heat for the final twenty minutes, for a caramelised, blistered top surface the slow, covered bake alone never achieves.