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Stuffed Peppeks

Stuffed bell peppers filled with bread, onion, parsley, and tomato pulp, baked with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 Peppeks

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 bell peppers in half lengthwise and remove the seeds and ribs.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, mix the stale bread, grated onion, minced parsley, salt, and pepper.

  2. Add enough liquid and soft pulp from the tomatoes to moisten the mixture thoroughly.

Bake and serve

  1. Fill the halved peppers with the mixture and place a small lump of butter on each.

  2. Bake in the oven for 30 to 45 minutes with a little water in the pan.

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

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

  5. Parsley + tomatotop 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

Stale bread
Absorbs the tomato liquid and gives the filling body and structure.
Tomatoes
Add moisture so the bread filling softens and stays tender while baking.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the filling and pepper surfaces brown lightly.
Bell peppers
Form the edible shell that softens as it bakes around the filling.

The step that matters

Moistening the filling thoroughly. Stale bread soaks up liquid slowly. If the filling is too dry it stays crumbly, and if it is too wet it turns soggy and loses its shape during baking.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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