Name: Chile Con Carne
Ingredients: 50% beef cheek meat, fresh; 20% beef suet; 6 ounces garlic; 3 ounces cumin seed; 3 ounces orange; 8 ounces Chilean Colorado; 2 pounds fine salt

Why it works: Garlic and cumin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,082 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Chile Con Carne

Ingredients

Directions

Combine beef cheek meat and beef suet in a large bowl.
Add garlic, cumin seed, orange, Chilean Colorado, and fine salt.
Grind the mixture finely for Northern trade and coarsely for Southern trade.

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.

Garlic + cumintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,082 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Cumin + orangetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together317 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Beef + meattop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,533 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Beef + garlictop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,165 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Beef + cumintop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,055 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).