~ Boston Baked Beans ~
Ingredients…
4 cups dried navy beans *(found out the hard way that these are not the same as great northern beans)
1 lb. salt pork
2 small onions thick sliced
1 1/2 cups molasses
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1 tsp. dry mustard
1 tsp. paprika
1 tsp. pepper
1 Tbl. salt
**1 tsp. baking soda (for pre-boil – not sure why?)
Soak beans overnight in 8 cups cold water. Drain. Cover with 8 cups water and boil 1 hour with 1 tsp. baking soda. Drain and reserve cooking liquid. Brown salt pork in a hot skillet until very brown on all sides, then cut into small cubes. Combine molasses, brown sugar, mustard, paprika, salt & pepper. Put a layer of salt pork in bottom of bean pot. Add half the beans, another layer of salt port, and top with onions. Add remaining beans and onions. Pour in molasses mixture, then top with cooking liquid until beans are completely covered with liquid. Bake covered at 300 degrees for ***6 hours. Add liquid periodically if necessary just to cover. See special notes below:
* It took me two batches of soaking beans overnight and doing the one hour pre-cook (which each time yielded completely cooked beans – not good), before it occurred to me that mom’s recipe that called for “dried beans” should have been NAVY beans NOT great northern beans. Not that there’s anything wrong with northern beans but they cook more quickly. Thank heaven I wasn’t alone in this endeavor and my partner recognized a melt down in the making and ran to the grocery store for replacement beans. My hero.
** Mom’s recipe also calls for adding 1 tsp. of baking soda to the pre-cook 1 hour boil. I have no idea why. Which reminds me of the story of the daughter learning to make the family recipe for pot roast. Her mom coached her through seasoning the roast then instructed her to cut the end off before putting it in the pot. The daughter questioned that step and her mother replied “that’s the way my mom taught me to make it.” And so she called her grandmother and asked “why do you cut the end of your pot roast.” Her response, “because the pot was too short for the roast.”
*** Because I ended up using great northern beans – I had to adjust the cooking time accordingly. I only boiled for 30 minutes, then cooked for 5 hours at 300 degrees instead of 6 hours.
Pre-oven ~ 1 hour mark ~ 2 hour mark
This is the point when your house begins to fill with that sweet smell of sugars and molasses dancing with the smokey salt pork.
5 hour mark ~ At this point “when aroma becomes flavor you know something amazing is happening.” Shared these at work today as we celebrated National Hot Dog Month. They were definitely worth the time and effort!!
- 4 cups dried navy beans
- 1 lb. salt pork
- 2 small onions thick sliced
- 1½ cups molasses
- 1½ cups brown sugar
- 1 tsp. dry mustard
- 1 tsp. paprika
- 1 tsp. pepper
- 1 Tbl. salt
- 1 tsp. baking soda (for pre-boil)
- Soak beans overnight in 8 cups cold water with 1 tsp. baking soda.
- Drain.
- Cover with 8 cups water and boil 1 hour with 1 tsp. baking soda.
- Drain and reserve cooking liquid.
- Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
- Brown salt pork in a hot skillet until very brown on all sides, then cut into small cubes.
- Combine molasses, brown sugar, mustard, paprika, salt & pepper.
- Put a layer of salt pork in bottom of bean pot.
- Add half the beans, another layer of salt port, and top with onions.
- Add remaining beans and onions.
- Pour in molasses mixture, then top with cooking liquid until beans are completely covered with liquid.
- Bake covered up to 6 hours.
- Add liquid periodically if necessary just to cover.
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Cannot wait to try this recipe! Loved Sweetie Pie’s comment! Great !
Oh me too. That comment has stayed with me. Thanks for being here Swamp Princess.
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I don’t have a bean pot. Can I use an alternative? I have a Le Creuset pot. Can I use this?
Hi Lynn. Yes, absolutely. Your Le Creuset will work fine. Cook covered and add cooking liquid as needed. I check mine every hour. You are going to love these. Please share how they turn out. Take care, Libby
Baking soda in the pre-soak to help tenderize the bean exterior, thus less cooking time needed. Just don’t overdue or the final dish will be mealy instead of creamy.
http://www.livestrong.com/article/541459-can-baking-soda-tenderize-dry-beans/
My Grandma used ham or even ham rind from a picnic ham and also said “the longer you cook them the better they will be[an]!!!
Hi Mike,
Thank you. Great to know. There really is nothing to compare to a pot of homemade baked beans and the aromas that will be dancing around your kitchen. Mmmm.
Take care,
Libby
I think the baking soda also helps limit the gas that beans seem to produce.
Yes, I’ve heard that. I’m sure that’s it :)
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the reason you put baking soda in with the beans is to take the fart out of the beans..My great-great grandma told me this…also she used some small lima beans added to the navy….
Ah ha! That would explain it. Thanks Lorraine. I know my mom is getting the biggest kick out of this.
You got this gas thang correct, Sistah Lorraine! We ate A LOT of beans at our farm home in TN. If we had it, we would also add a sprig of Rosemary to the long bake in our Baked Beans; after 5-6 hours you remove the stem and the “leaves’ simply stay. We would use fatback or other trimmed off piece of pork – waste not/want not – but usually the preserved salt pork was what came handy. This would be a dish we put in the back oven (usually the wood stove) while we worked in the fields. When we came in at the end of the day to wash up and set the table to get ready for the men to come in, a skillet of cornbread usually completed the meal – plus Sweet Tea (made with saccharine for our diabetics), of course. With other bean dishes as ‘sides’ a table was not “well set” without a bowl of chopped yellow or Vidalia onions & cucumbers in vinegar, sliced tomatoes out of the garden, and chow chow or whatever pickles were available; a glass of buttermilk, Sweet Tea or cistern water (if the well was low) and we all ate our fill.
Sweetie Pie that’s a wonderful description of good farm living and fantastic homemade cooking (and eating). Thank you for sharing.
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