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Stuffed Bell Peppers, Brazilian Style

Stuffed bell peppers filled with a buttery mushroom and green pepper mixture, topped with pork fat and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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 Bell Peppers, Brazilian Style

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Prepare the bell peppers as in the previous recipe.

  2. In a saucepan, melt the butter and add the chopped onion. Cover and simmer until half cooked.

  3. Add the chopped mushrooms and green peppers to the onion and simmer until the moisture is reduced.

  4. Stir in the Allemande sauce, bread crumbs, salt, nutmeg, parsley, and garlic. Mix well while adding the egg yolks.

Stuff and bake

  1. Stuff the prepared peppers with the mixture and cover each with a slice of fat pork.

  2. Arrange the stuffed peppers in a buttered flat saucepan.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C).

  4. Serve with a brown Italian sauce.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Bind the filling together and help it set lightly when baked.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the filling body so it holds its shape.
Mushrooms
Add savory, earthy flavor and moisture that cooking down concentrates.
Butter
Adds richness and carries the flavor of the cooked onion.
Fat pork
Bastes the peppers as it renders, adding moisture and savory flavor.

The step that matters

Simmer the mushrooms and peppers until the moisture is reduced. Excess water from the vegetables would thin the filling and make it soggy, so the filling needs to be reduced before the sauce, crumbs and egg yolks are added.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, butter, mushroom, sauce, bread, nutmeg, parsley):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, mushroom, sauce, bread, nutmeg, parsley. 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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