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Chili Con Carne

A hearty stew of ground beef, kidney beans, diced tomatoes, onion, garlic, and spices, served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Chili Con Carne

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the chili

  1. In a large pot, brown the ground beef over medium heat.

  2. Add the chopped onion and minced garlic; sauté until softened.

  3. Stir in the chili powder, cumin, salt, and pepper.

  4. Add the kidney beans and diced tomatoes; simmer for 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve hot with boiled potatoes.

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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Garlic + cumintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,082 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Tomato + cumintop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,272 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Tomato + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Clove + cumintop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,306 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Ground beef
Provides the main meaty body and savory flavor of the chili.
Kidney beans
Add bulk and a creamy, starchy texture as they soften during simmering.
Diced tomatoes
Add moisture and acidity that help form the sauce and balance the spices.
Onion
Softens and sweetens as it sautés, building a flavor base.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma that mellows and deepens during cooking.
Chili powder
Supplies the chili flavor and warm, earthy heat to the dish.

The step that matters

Browning the ground beef. Browning the meat over medium heat triggers the Maillard reaction, creating deeper, savory flavors. Crowding the pot or stirring too little can steam the meat instead, leaving it grey and bland.

Swap the kidney beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, tomato, onion, clove, garlic, cumin, pepper):

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Black-eyed peafits better
  4. Kidney beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, tomato, onion, clove, garlic, cumin, pepper. 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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