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Stuffed Bell Peppers

Stuffed bell peppers filled with a mixture of cooked meat, bread crumbs, onion, salt, butter, and water, baked until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Stuffed Bell 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Halve the bell peppers and remove all seeds.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, combine the chopped meat, bread crumbs, grated onion, and salt.

  2. Pour in the melted butter and water to bind the mixture.

Stuff and bake

  1. Stuff the halved peppers with the meat mixture, rounding it on top.

  2. Place the stuffed peppers in a baking dish and bake for 30-40 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Bread + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 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

Bell peppers
Their walls soften during baking and hold the filling in a tender shell.
Cooked meat or fowl
Provides the main body and savory flavor of the filling.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the butter and water, helping the filling hold together and stay moist.
Melted butter
Adds fat and richness, keeping the filling moist and carrying flavor.
Grated onion
Adds aroma and savory depth, and its moisture blends into the filling.

The step that matters

Pour in the melted butter and water to bind the mixture. Bread crumbs need enough liquid and fat to swell and bind the meat. Too little leaves a dry, crumbly filling, while too much makes it loose and soggy in the pepper.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, meat, bread, butter):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, meat, bread, butter. 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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