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Chile Con Carne

A stew of steak, onions, tomatoes, chili peppers, lard, butter, and water, seasoned with salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper 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 ↓

Chile Con Carne

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Cut the steak into 1-inch pieces.

  2. Season the steak with salt.

  3. Dust the steak with flour.

  4. Heat lard and butter in a hot frying pan.

  5. Fry the meat until browned.

  6. Sprinkle the meat with flour again.

Make the chili

  1. Add hot water.

  2. Cook for 30 minutes.

  3. Add the chopped onions and strained tomatoes to the meat.

  4. Remove seeds from the chili peppers.

  5. Cook the peppers in water until the skin can be removed.

  6. Chop the peppers finely.

  7. Add the chopped peppers to the pot.

  8. Cook slowly for another 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. Tomato + peppertop 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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Round steak
Provides the main meat, which browns and becomes tender during the long simmer.
Flour
Dusted on the meat to help it brown and to thicken the sauce.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and body to the sauce as they cook down with the meat.
Chili peppers
Supply the heat and chili flavor that define the dish.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory depth as they soften in the sauce.

The step that matters

Browning the floured meat. Frying the floured steak in hot fat until well browned builds the deep roasted flavor that the long simmer cannot create later. Pale meat gives a flat, boiled taste.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Okrafits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, pepper, butter, flour. 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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