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Chili Con Carne

A hearty beef chili with onions, potatoes, tomatoes, and chili powder, thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Chili Con Carne

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a large pot, combine the chopped beef, onions, potatoes, tomatoes, water, salt, and chili powder.

  2. Cook over medium heat until the meat is tender.

  3. In a small bowl, mix the flour with a little water to create a paste, then stir it into the pot to thicken the chili.

  4. Serve hot.

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 + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Potato + tomatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

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

  3. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  4. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  5. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the main protein and meaty body of the chili as it cooks tender.
Flour
Thickens the chili when mixed into a paste and stirred into the hot liquid.
Potatoes
Soften as they cook and add body and starch to the stew.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and moisture that give the chili its base flavor and liquid.

The step that matters

Stir the flour paste into the pot. Flour mixed directly into hot liquid can clump. Mixing it first with a little water into a smooth paste lets the starch disperse evenly, so the chili thickens without lumps.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, potato, 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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