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Stuffed Peppers

A baked dish of green peppers filled with a mixture of ham, onions, tomatoes, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 the filling

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

  2. Remove the seeds from the green peppers and wash them carefully.

  3. In a skillet, brown the chopped onion in butter.

  4. Add the chopped ham, canned tomatoes, and enough bread crumbs to thicken the mixture. Season with coarse sea salt to taste.

Bake

  1. Fill the peppers with the mixture and place them in a baking dish.

  2. 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.

  1. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

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

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

  5. 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
Serve as the edible shell that holds the filling while it bakes.
Butter
Browns the onion and adds richness to the filling.
Onion
Adds savory depth when browned in butter.
Boiled ham
Provides savory, meaty flavor and substance to the filling.
Canned tomatoes
Add moisture, acidity and flavor to the filling.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and thicken the filling so it holds together.

The step that matters

Thicken the mixture with bread crumbs. Add crumbs until the filling is thick enough to hold its shape. Too much liquid from the tomatoes makes a loose filling that spills and steams the peppers instead of holding inside them.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. 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.

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