Name: Green Peppers with Chicken
Ingredients: 4 green peppers; 2 cups cold boiled chicken, finely chopped; 1 cup cream; 1 beaten egg; ½ cup bread crumbs

Why it works: Egg and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Green Peppers with Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the peppers

Remove the seeds from the peppers.
Pour boiling water over the peppers and let them stand for five minutes.

Fill and bake

In a bowl, mix the chopped chicken with the cream to create a thick sauce.
Fill each pepper with the chicken mixture.
Moisten the tops with the beaten egg and sprinkle bread crumbs over them.
Place the peppers in a pan of hot water.
Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for twenty 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.

Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Chicken + breadtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,258 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity).
Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,964 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Pepper + chickentop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together19,958 recipes

Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).
Pepper + creamtop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together21,449 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Pepper and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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

Chicken: Forms the main filling, giving the stuffing its bulk and savory body.
Cream: Mixes with the chopped chicken to form a thick, moist sauce that keeps the filling from drying out.
Egg: Moistens the tops so the bread crumbs adhere and help form a set, golden crust.
Bread crumbs: Form a crisp, browned topping over the filling as it bakes.

“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.