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Chili Con Carne

A stew of Hamburg steak balls with green pepper, onion, red kidney beans, and tomatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Chili Con Carne

Ingredients

Directions

Simmer the meat

  1. Cover the Hamburg steak balls with water and leftover gravy.

  2. Cook until tender.

Add vegetables and finish

  1. Add the chopped green pepper, onion, red kidney beans, salt, pepper, and tomatoes.

  2. Cook slowly for 30 minutes.

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. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Kidney beans + tomatotop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together821 recipes

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

  5. Onion + kidney beanstop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Hamburg steak
Provides the meat base, which becomes tender through long, gentle cooking in liquid.
Red kidney beans
Add body and starchy texture, thickening the dish as they soften in the simmer.
Tomatoes
Add moisture, acidity and savoury flavour that build the sauce as they cook down.
Onion
Adds aroma and gentle sweetness as it softens during cooking.
Green pepper
Contributes fresh, slightly bitter flavour and some texture to the finished dish.

The step that matters

Cook slowly for 30 minutes. A gentle simmer lets the meat's connective tissue break down slowly, keeping it tender. Boiling hard toughens the meat and can break up the beans.

Swap the kidney beans

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

  1. Black-eyed peafits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Chickpeafits better
  4. Kidney beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, onion, 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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