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Chili Con Carne

A spicy stew of beef or chicken simmered with onion, garlic, cumin, and chili pepper pulp.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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

  1. Brown the beef or chicken in lard over medium heat.

  2. Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  3. Add the minced onion, garlic, and pounded cumin seeds.

  4. Pour in enough water to cover the meat and simmer.

  5. When nearly done, stir in the pulp of the chili peppers and cook for a few more 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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Garlic + cumintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,082 recipes

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

  3. Clove + cumintop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,306 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Onion + cumintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,498 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef or chicken
Provides the main protein, which browns and becomes tender as it simmers.
Lard
Fat that carries the heat for browning the meat and adds richness.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and body to the sauce as it softens.
Chili peppers
Supply the heat and characteristic chili flavor of the dish.

The step that matters

Stirring in the chili pulp near the end. Chili pulp added too early can turn bitter and dull in flavor as it cooks for a long time. Adding it when the meat is nearly done keeps its flavor bright and fresh.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Oreganofits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Corianderfits better
  4. Clovethe original

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