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Stuffed Green Peppers

A dish of green peppers filled with a rice and tomato mixture, topped with cream cheese and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,065 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Stuffed Green Peppers

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the peppers

  1. Remove seeds from the peppers and soak them in weak brine for 30 minutes.

  2. Place the peppers in cold water and bring to a boil; boil for 2 minutes.

Make the filling

  1. Wash and boil the rice until very tender, then let it steam dry.

  2. Melt the butter in a pan and fry the chopped onion until soft.

  3. Add the tomatoes, salt, pepper, and Worcestershire sauce to the onion.

  4. Stir in the cooked rice and heat until thoroughly warmed.

  5. If desired, mix in finely chopped ham.

Bake and serve

  1. Fill the peppers with the rice mixture and top with grated cream cheese.

  2. Heat the stuffed peppers in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until heated through.

  3. Serve with tomato 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. Rice + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

  3. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Butter + cream cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,747 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Rice + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 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

Rice
Absorbs liquid and forms the bulk of the filling, giving it a soft, substantial texture.
Onion
Softens while frying and adds savory sweetness and aroma to the filling.
Tomatoes
Add moisture and acidity that flavor the rice filling and keep it from drying out.
Cream cheese
Melts over the top during heating, adding richness and a creamy topping.
Butter
Fat used to fry the onion, adding richness and carrying flavor.

The step that matters

Boil the peppers only briefly. Two minutes of boiling softens the pepper walls enough to fill and bake without collapsing; boiling longer can make them too limp to hold the filling.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, rice, butter, tomato, sauce, ham, cream cheese):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, rice, butter, tomato, sauce, ham, cream cheese. 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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