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Salad

Sweet Pepper Salad

A salad of sweet pepper cups stuffed with cottage cheese, almonds, and seasonings, served with French dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and asparagus match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 203 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Sweet Pepper Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peppers

  1. Cut off the tops of the sweet peppers and remove the insides, leaving the cups.

  2. If the peppers are very strong, soak them in cold salt water for a while.

Make and stuff

  1. In a bowl, moisten the cottage cheese with a little cream, then add salt and paprika.

  2. Fold in the halved blanched almonds.

  3. Stuff the peppers with the cheese mixture and refrigerate until ready to use.

Assemble and serve

  1. Slice each pepper into 3 rounds.

  2. On a lettuce leaf, place 3 asparagus tips, 3 slices of cucumber, 1 slice of stuffed pepper, and a thin slice of pimento.

  3. Serve with French dressing.

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. Cucumber + asparagustop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together203 recipes

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

  2. Asparagus + almondtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together94 recipes

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

  3. Cucumber + almondtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together166 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Pepper + asparagustop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,968 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + cucumbertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,991 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

Cottage cheese
Forms the creamy, mild filling that holds the salad together.
Blanched almonds
Add crunch and a nutty texture against the soft cheese.
Sweet peppers
Provide the edible cup that holds the filling and a fresh, crisp bite.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness so the cheese becomes smooth and spreadable.

The step that matters

Soaking strong peppers. Soaking in cold salt water draws out some of the sharp, bitter flavour in strong peppers, so the filled cups taste milder and balanced against the cheese.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, cottage cheese, cucumber, asparagus, cream):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Walnutfits better
  3. Peasfits about as well
  4. Almondthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, cottage cheese, cucumber, asparagus, cream. 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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