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Stuffed Peppers

A baked dish of bell peppers filled with a mixture of cooked meat, bread crumbs, butter, and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the peppers

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

  2. Wash and wipe the peppers, or blister them in a hot oven and rub off the skin.

  3. Cut out the stem end of each pepper to create an opening for removing seeds.

Stuff and bake

  1. Mix the chopped meat and bread crumbs, season with salt and butter or gravy.

  2. Stuff the peppers with the mixture and replace the stem end.

  3. Place the stuffed peppers in an earthen dish and pour cold gravy around them.

  4. Bake for 30 minutes in the preheated oven.

  5. For gravy, brown 1 tablespoon each of flour and butter over heat, then gradually stir in 1 pint of boiling water, seasoning with salt and pepper.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Bell peppers
Hold the filling and soften in the oven while becoming tender around it.
Cold cooked meat
Provides the main savory filling that the bread crumbs bind together.
Soft bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and butter or gravy, helping the filling hold together and stay tender.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as it browns with butter and is stirred into boiling water.

The step that matters

Browning the flour and butter for the gravy. Cooking flour in fat until it is evenly browned develops flavor and removes raw starch taste. Adding boiling water all at once or too quickly can cause lumps, so stir in gradually.

“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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