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Making Chile Con Carne

A large batch of canned chili con carne made with ground beef, spices, tomato pulp, and chili peppers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Making Chile Con Carne

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef and peppers

  1. Run the canning beef through a meat grinder using a ½-inch plate.

  2. To prepare the chili peppers, cover the dry peppers with water and boil until soft.

  3. Grind the softened peppers through a meat grinder using a small plate.

  4. Mix the ground peppers with a little water before adding to the chili con carne to prevent clumping.

Make the chili

  1. In a steam-jacketed kettle, combine the ground beef with about 10 gallons of water and cook, stirring constantly, until the meat is browned.

  2. Add about 50 gallons of water, the spices, and tomato pulp to the kettle.

  3. Add water to reach a total of 100 gallons and bring to a boil.

Process the cans

  1. Process one-pound cans for 1 hour and 45 minutes at 8 lbs. pressure.

  2. Process two-pound cans for 2 hours at 8 lbs. pressure.

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. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

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

  4. Oregano + tomatotop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,767 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  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

Canning beef
Provides the meat base, which browns and becomes tender during long cooking.
Chili peppers
Supply the main heat and chili flavor once softened and ground into the sauce.
Tomato pulp
Adds acidity, body and moisture that give the chili its sauce.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory depth as they soften during cooking.
Garlic
Contributes pungent aroma that mellows during cooking.
Cumin
Adds warm, earthy aroma characteristic of chili.

The step that matters

Mix the ground peppers with a little water before adding. Ground softened peppers form lumps when added dry to a large batch, so thinning them with water helps them disperse evenly through the sauce.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Eggplantfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

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