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Chili Concarni

A hearty chili made with tomatoes, ground beef, kidney beans, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Chili Concarni

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a large pot, combine tomatoes, lemon juice, celery, cloves, red pepper pods, allspice, dried onions, water, and garlic.

  2. Boil the mixture hard for two hours, then strain through a colander.

Cook the beef and finish

  1. In a separate pot, boil the ground beef in a little water for two hours.

  2. Add the kidney beans to the beef, then combine with the strained tomato mixture.

  3. Stir in the chili powder and serve hot.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Lemon + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Ground beef
Provides the meaty body and savory base of the chili.
Kidney beans
Add starch and soft texture, making the chili heartier.
Tomatoes
Supply the liquid and acidity that form the chili's main sauce.
Red pepper pods
Add heat and pepper flavor to the sauce.
Dried onions
Add savory sweetness and depth as the sauce cooks down.

The step that matters

Boiling the sauce hard for two hours. A long, vigorous boil reduces the liquid and concentrates the flavors of the tomatoes and spices. Too little time leaves the sauce thin and muted.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, lemon, celery, clove, pepper, allspice, garlic):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, lemon, celery, clove, pepper, allspice, 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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