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My Best Kid-Friendly Chili

"The husband and I love chili, and love it spicy! But cooking for 3 little children requires me to tone it down for their taste buds. We like to add a few dashes of Sriracha® or fresh chopped jalapeno and onion to make up for the missing heat. The kids are partial to goldfish crackers on top! But as with any chili, feel free to top it with your favorites. If you are lucky enough to live near an Italian market, the salsiccia is best in our opinion. If not, then you can sub another kind of ground Italian sausage. It may be light on spice, but full of flavor!"

By allrecipes · From Open Recipes · 15 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 29,030 recipes mention both. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

The recipe

10 servings
Prep30 min
Cook1 hr 35 min

Ingredients

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Heat the olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add the diced onions and diced green bell pepper and cook for 8 minutes, until soft. Stir in the minced garlic and cook 1 minute more.

  2. Add the ground sirloin and ground salsiccia sausage, breaking them up. Cook for about 12 minutes until browned, reaching 160°F (71°C) in the thickest part. Drain off excess fat.

  3. Stir in the cocoa powder, ground cumin and chili powder and cook for 2 minutes, stirring constantly.

  4. Pour in the brewed coffee, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom. Add the crushed tomatoes, diced green chiles and 1 cup water, stirring well.

  5. Stir in the undrained chili beans. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to low, partly cover and simmer for 60 minutes, stirring occasionally and adding a splash of water if it gets too thick.

  6. Season with salt to taste and simmer uncovered for 10 minutes more before serving.

By allrecipes. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together29,030 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Coffee + cocoa powdertop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together541 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Olive + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together23,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Beef + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together17,091 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Olive + beanstop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,080 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, beef, olive, garlic, beans, coffee, cocoa powder):

  1. Tomatobetter flavor fit
  2. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  3. Potatobetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, beef, olive, garlic, beans, coffee, cocoa powder. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).