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Pan Tamales

A baked casserole of beef and cornmeal layered with a pepper sauce, olives, raisins and chili sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Pan Tamales

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pepper sauce

  1. Wash the peppers, cut out seeds and veins, and place them in a pan covered with water.

  2. Cook until soft, then squeeze out the skins and strain the mixture.

  3. Return the strained mixture to the pan, add a little more water, a pinch of salt, and thicken with flour.

  4. Set the thickened mixture aside.

Prepare the meat and cornmeal

  1. Boil the beef until very tender, then take the broth and thicken it with cornmeal until it is very stiff.

  2. In a skillet, combine the cornmeal dough with a little beef fat or cottolene and stir until well mixed.

  3. Cut the meat into small pieces.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a deep pan, layer the meat, a few olives, and raisins, then pour over a little chili sauce.

  2. Add a layer of cornmeal, followed by another layer of meat, raisins, and chili sauce.

  3. Top with a final layer of cornmeal, well covered with sauce.

  4. Bake for 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Pepper + olivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Beef + olivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,220 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Peppers
Cooked and strained into a thick sauce that gives the pie its main flavor and moisture.
Cornmeal
Thickened into a stiff dough that forms the layers and holds the pie together.
Flour
Thickens the pepper sauce so it coats the layers rather than running off.
Boiling beef
Cooked until tender and cut into pieces to make the savory filling layers.
Beef fat or cottolene
Adds richness and moisture to the cornmeal dough so it stays soft.

The step that matters

Thickening the cornmeal dough until very stiff. Cornmeal thickens as the broth is absorbed and cooled. If it is too thin, the layers will run together and the pie will not hold its shape when baked and served.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, flour, beef, olive, sauce):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, flour, beef, olive, sauce. 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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