Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. 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 caps and seeds from the peppers.
Scald the bread, soak it, and squeeze it dry.
Make the filling
In a bowl, mix the soaked bread, onion, garlic, ham, minced peppers, butter, paprika, and pepper.
Stuff the mixture into the prepared peppers and replace the caps.
Bake
Bake in tomato sauce at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes.
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.
-
Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together29,058 recipes
Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
-
Garlic + tomatotop 3% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together14,076 recipes
Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
-
Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together17,451 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
-
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
-
Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,923 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Peppers
- Hollow shells that hold the filling and soften as they bake.
- Bread
- Soaked and squeezed, it binds the filling and keeps it moist.
- Ham
- Adds savory, salty flavor to the filling.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a softer, moister filling.
Swap the clove
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, bread, onion, garlic, ham, butter, tomato):
- Thymefits better
- Parsleyfits better
- Celeryfits better
- Clovethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, bread, onion, garlic, ham, butter, tomato. 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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