Name: Stuffed Peppers
Ingredients: 6 green peppers; 1 cup soaked bread; 1 cup chopped ham; 1 tablespoon parsley; 1 ball butter; coarse sea salt to taste; bread crumbs

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Stuffed Peppers

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Remove the tops and seeds from the green peppers, then scald and clean them thoroughly.
Prepare the stuffing by mixing soaked bread, chopped ham, parsley, butter, and salt.

Stuff and bake

Fill the peppers with the stuffing and top with bread crumbs and a bit of butter.
Place the stuffed peppers in a pan with a little water at the bottom.
Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 45 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.

Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Bread + hamtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,536 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together28,563 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,588 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Green peppers: Act as the edible shell that holds the stuffing while it cooks and softens.
Soaked bread: Adds moisture and body to the stuffing, keeping the filling soft rather than dry.
Chopped ham: Contributes savoury, salty flavour to the stuffing.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and helps the top brown in the oven.

“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.