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Pulique

Pulique is a Guatemalan beef dish cooked with tomatoes, onions, garlic, peppers, peppercorns, epazote, and chicken stock.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Garlic and epazote work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and 27 recipes mention both. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

The recipe

Oven400°F

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Place beef in roasting pan or Dutch oven.

  2. Coat with olive oil and minced garlic and sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste.

  3. Bake uncovered at 400 degrees for 10 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. Meanwhile, combine tomatoes, onion, garlic cloves, peppers, cloves and peppercorns in saucepan and cook over medium-low heat for 8 minutes.

  2. Puree in blender with epazote and stock.

Finish and serve

  1. Add pureed mixture to beef, cover and bake 5 minutes longer. (Beef should remain slightly pink in center.)

  2. Place beef on platter, cut into slices and ladle sauce over top.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

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. Garlic + epazotetop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together27 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Olive + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14,164 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together29,030 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Garlic + tomatotop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together14,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef filet
Is the main protein, cooked gently so it stays tender and slightly pink inside.
Roma tomatoes
Break down into the sauce, adding body, moisture and mild acidity.
Garlic cloves
Mellow during cooking and add aroma to the sauce and the beef.
Chicken stock
Thins the pureed sauce and adds savory depth and moisture.
Olive oil
Carries the garlic and seasoning over the beef and helps it brown.

The step that matters

Keep the beef slightly pink in the center. Beef cooked past medium becomes firm and dry as muscle proteins tighten and moisture is squeezed out. Checking the centre during the final covered bake helps keep it juicy and tender.

Flavor stand-ins for the epazote

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

  1. Thymebetter flavor fit
  2. Basilbetter flavor fit
  3. Cuminbetter flavor fit
  4. Epazotethe original

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

“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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