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Chili Con Carne

A stew of beef, chili peppers, garlic, and beans thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Chili Con Carne

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chili water

  1. Remove the seeds from the chili peppers and soak the pods in warm water until soft.

  2. Scrape the pulp from the skin and add it to the water.

Cook the chili

  1. Brown the beef in butter or drippings in a pot.

  2. Add the garlic and the chili water to the pot.

  3. Cook until the meat is tender, adding more water if necessary.

  4. Thicken the sauce with flour.

Serve

  1. Serve with Mexican beans, either mixed with the meat or as a side.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  3. Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Beef
Provides the main body and savory flavor, and becomes tender during long simmering.
Chili peppers
Supply the characteristic chili flavor and heat that define the dish.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks, giving it body.
Butter or drippings
Carries flavor and helps brown the beef at the start.
Red kidney beans
Add starch and texture when served mixed with the meat or alongside it.

The step that matters

Thicken the sauce with flour. Flour must be cooked into the liquid to avoid lumps and a raw starchy taste. Adding it to hot liquid gradually, or mixing it smooth first, helps it disperse evenly and thicken properly.

Swap the kidney beans

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

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Lentilsfits better
  3. Beansfits better
  4. Kidney beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, beef, butter, clove, garlic, 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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