Boston Baked Beans

Hey,

So glad you’re back! I totally want to try some of those recipes when you post them, the pictures looked great.

This recipe here is the first one I’ve made from The Marmite Cookbook . I used to hate Marmite with a passion, till you told me about the Guiness marmite. Now I’m a total convert, I’ve been eating it on everything. It’s really good on egg salad sandwiches (egg mayo sandwiches if your British).

1kg dried haricot beans, soaked overnight
100ml molasses or black treacle
2tbsp brown sugar
2tsp dry mustard powder
2tsp marmite
1tsp ground black pepper
1 medium onion, peeled
500g belly of pork with rind

Cover the soaked beans with fresh water and bring to the boil, skinning off any foam. Reduce the heat and simmer the beans till their skins begin to burst. Drain and reserve the cooking liquid. Combine the molasses, brown sugar, mustard powder, marmite and pepper with the cooking liquid.

Heat the oven to 100c/200f. Place the onion in the bottom of a 2 liter ovenproof casserole and pour the beans on top. Score the rind of the pork and push it down into the beans rind side up. Pour the seasoned liquid on top adding enough boiling water to cover the beans. Cover the casserole and bake for nine hours.
Every hour add boiling water, if necessary, to keep the beans covered. Remove the cover for the last hour of baking so that the pork browns. Serve the pork on top of the beans.

Just to recap, that’s nine hours of cooking after you’re done cooking the beans. I started at 7am.

They were ok. If you know that you are going to be home all day, it’s not terribly labor intensive, and there’s something kind of funny about being mostly done making dinner by 8am.

They are actually pretty good if you put ketchup on them, and they are better the next day. The first night I put them on baked potatoes (very British), the second night they were a side dish with barbequed ribs. I actually have a collection of rib recipes that I have to post. I’ve been making loads of different ones trying to find the best. I think I have, so I’ll post them all soon.

By the way, I had never used Molassas before. It's not at all what I expected. Very strong smell. That was fun.