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Mexican Chile Con Carne

A spicy beef and pork stew with beans and chili spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Cumin and oregano match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 983 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mexican Chile Con Carne

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spice base

  1. Combine the chili peppers, Xetine, cumin, oregano, and garlic in a bowl.

Cook the meat

  1. In a separate pot, boil the beef until tender and chop it.

  2. Mix the chopped beef with the spice mixture.

Combine and season

  1. In another pot, boil the Mexican beans until cooked.

  2. Combine the beans and meat mixture while hot.

  3. Add salt to taste.

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. Cumin + oreganotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together983 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cumin + beanstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,188 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Cumin + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,082 recipes

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

  4. Beef + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

  5. Oregano + garlictop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,756 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the main body and meaty texture of the chili.
Mexican beans
Add bulk, starch, and creamy body to the dish.
Powdered chili peppers
Supply the main heat and chili flavour of the dish.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma and savoury depth to the spice base.

Swap the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, cumin, oregano, garlic, beef, pork):

  1. Beansthe original
  2. Chickpeafits about as well
  3. Lentilsfits about as well
  4. Black-eyed peafits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, cumin, oregano, garlic, beef, pork. 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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