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Stuffed Peppers

A savory dish of parboiled peppers filled with a mixture of onion, mushrooms, ham, chicken, and bread crumbs, baked and served with brown sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and chicken are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,172 recipes. Both carry 1-butyl acetate, which smells fruity, banana. The science ↓

Stuffed Peppers

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.

Make the filling

  1. Cook the onion with butter in a skillet over medium heat for five minutes without browning.

  2. Add the mushrooms, ham, and chicken; cook for one minute.

  3. Moisten the mixture with brown sauce.

  4. Add the bread crumbs, cayenne, salt, and pepper.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill the peppers with the cooked mixture.

  2. Cover the peppers with buttered bread crumbs.

  3. Place the peppers in buttered gem cups.

  4. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for ten minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve on rings of toast with additional Brown Sauce.

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. Mushroom + chickentop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

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

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

  3. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Bread + hamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

  5. Onion + chickentop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Onion
Softened in butter without browning, it adds a mild sweetness and aroma to the filling.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the moisture of the brown sauce, giving the filling body so it holds its shape.
Butter
Carries the onion's flavour and adds richness to the filling and the crumb topping.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and earthy savoury flavour to the filling.
Parboiled peppers
Act as the edible case that holds the filling and softens further in the oven.

The step that matters

Cook the onion without browning. Gentle cooking over medium heat softens the onion and draws out its sweetness. Browning would add bitterness and a harsher flavour to the delicate filling.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, butter, bread, mushroom, pepper, ham, chicken. 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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