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Chili Con Carne

A spicy beef stew made with chili peppers, onions, garlic, bay leaves, and beef.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Chili Con Carne

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chili

  1. Wash and remove the stems from the chili peppers.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the peppers and bay leaves, pour in boiling water, and boil until soft.

  3. Mash the mixture through a wire sieve.

Make the con carne

  1. In another saucepan, heat the lard and add the onion and garlic; sauté until fragrant.

  2. Add the chopped beefsteak and cook until well done but not hard.

  3. Stir in the mashed chili peppers and salt to taste.

  4. Let the mixture simmer over low heat for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

Serve

  1. Serve with buttered toast or buckwheat cakes.

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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + garlictop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

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

  4. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

Chili peppers
Provide the main flavor and body of the sauce once boiled and mashed.
Beefsteak
Supplies the meat and richness that forms the bulk of the dish.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aroma as it softens in the hot fat.
Garlic
Contributes pungent aroma that mellows and sweetens with gentle sautéing.
Lard
Carries heat and adds fat, helping the onion and garlic cook and enriching the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmering the mixture for 1 hour. Long, gentle simmering over low heat lets the chili and meat flavors meld and the sauce thicken. Stirring prevents scorching on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cuminfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, onion, garlic. 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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