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Stuffed Green Peppers

A baked dish of green peppers filled with a bread crumb and ham or beef mixture, topped with tomato juice and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 Green Peppers

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Split the large peppers lengthwise and remove the seeds.

Stuff and bake

  1. Mix the bread crumbs with minced ham or tender roast beef, seasoned with butter, coarse sea salt, and black pepper.

  2. Fill the peppers with the mixture.

  3. Moisten the stuffed peppers with tomato juice.

  4. Bake in the preheated oven until brown.

  5. Sprinkle chopped parsley over the peppers just before serving.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Bread + hamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 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

Bread crumbs
Bulk the filling and soak up juices so it stays moist rather than dense.
Minced ham or tender roast beef
Adds savoury meat flavour and body to the filling.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the filling brown in the oven.
Tomato juice
Moistens the filling and adds acidity that balances the sweet pepper.

The step that matters

Bake in the preheated oven until brown. Starting in a fully preheated oven gives steady heat so the peppers soften through while the top browns. Browning comes from the Maillard reaction on the buttered crumbs and meat, so stop when the surface is golden, not pale or scorched.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, bread, ham, butter, 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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