Name: Mexican Beef
Ingredients: 2 Chili peppers; 1 pint warm water; 2 pounds beef; butter or oil for browning

Why it works: Pepper and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Mexican Beef

Ingredients

2 Chili peppers
1 pint warm water
2 pounds beef
butter or oil for browning

Directions

Prepare the chilies

Remove the seeds from the chili peppers.
Soak the pods in warm water until soft.
Scrape the pulp from the skin and add it to the water.

Brown the beef

Cut the beef into small pieces.
Brown the beef in butter or oil.

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.

Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,971 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,847 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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 heat, and their pulp thickens the soaking liquid into a sauce base.
Beef: Forms the main body of the stew, becoming tender with slow cooking.
Butter or oil: Conducts heat for browning the beef, adding color and savory flavor to its surface.

“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.