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Stuffed Peppers

Sweet peppers stuffed with veal, corn, bread crumbs, and butter, baked in stock or water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the peppers

  1. Cut the tops off the peppers and remove the seeds.

  2. Soak the peppers in salt water for 15 minutes.

Stuff and bake

  1. In a bowl, mix the veal, corn, bread crumbs, salt, and white pepper until finely chopped.

  2. Stuff the mixture into the peppers.

  3. Add a walnut-sized piece of butter to each pepper before replacing the tops.

  4. Place the stuffed peppers in a deep pan and pour stock or water over them.

  5. Cook in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Corn + walnuttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together349 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + corntop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + walnuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,039 recipes

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

  5. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet peppers
Hold the filling and soften as they cook, becoming tender and sweet.
Cold boiled veal
Provides the savory, meaty body of the filling.
White bread crumbs
Bind the filling and absorb juices, keeping it moist rather than dense.
Green corn
Adds sweetness and soft texture to the filling.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture as it melts into the filling and peppers.

The step that matters

Pouring in the stock or water. The liquid in the pan creates steam in the oven, which softens the thick pepper walls and cooks the filling gently. Without enough liquid, the peppers can dry out or scorch before they become tender.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, veal, corn, bread, walnut, butter):

  1. Sagefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, veal, corn, bread, walnut, 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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