Name: Chilis Rellenos
Ingredients: sweet peppers; cucumbers; parsley; hard-boiled eggs; bread crumbs; crumbled cheese; butter; coarse sea salt

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 ↓

Chilis Rellenos

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Cut a slit in the sweet peppers.
Stuff the peppers with a mixture of chopped cucumbers, parsley, hard-boiled eggs, bread crumbs, crumbled cheese, and butter.
Add coarse sea salt to taste.

Cook

Tie up the peppers and boil them until tender, about 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.

Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,564 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,130 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet peppers: Form the shell that holds the filling and softens as it cooks.
Hard-boiled eggs: Add body and a firm, creamy texture to the filling.
Bread crumbs: Absorb moisture and help bind the filling together.
Crumbled cheese: Adds savory richness and salty flavour to the filling.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel.
Cucumbers: Add moisture and a fresh, crisp contrast to the filling.

Swap the cucumber

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

Capsicumfits better
Potatofits better
Asparagusfits better
Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, parsley, egg, bread, cheese, 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.