Name: Stuffed Peppers
Ingredients: 6 large green peppers; 2 tablespoons butter; 1 medium onion, finely chopped; ½ lb boiled ham, chopped; 1 quart canned tomatoes; bread crumbs, sufficient to thicken; coarse sea salt, to taste; water, for baking

Why it works: Butter and bread 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 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

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Remove seeds from the peppers and wash them carefully.

Make the filling

In a skillet, brown the onion in butter.
Add the chopped ham, canned tomatoes, and enough bread crumbs to thicken the mixture.
Season with coarse sea salt to taste.

Bake

Fill the peppers with the mixture and place them in a baking dish.
Cover the bottom of the dish with water and bake for 30 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.

Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,536 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,633 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,013 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Green peppers: Form the edible shell that holds the filling and softens as it bakes.
Butter: Adds fat and richness while browning the onion, building flavour.
Onion: Browned in butter to add sweetness and savoury depth to the filling.
Boiled ham: Contributes salty, meaty flavour to the filling.
Canned tomatoes: Supply moisture and acidity that cook into a saucy filling.
Bread crumbs: Absorb liquid from the tomatoes so the filling thickens and holds together.

Swap the onion

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

Capsicumfits better
Potatofits about as well
Asparagusfits about as well
Onionthe original

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