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To Stuff Peppers

Roasted peppers stuffed with a meat and corn mixture, battered and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and corn match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,099 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

To Stuff Peppers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peppers

  1. Remove the seeds from the peppers and roast them over live coals, turning until light brown.

  2. Immediately place the roasted peppers in a bowl of cold water and remove the skins.

Make the filling

  1. In a saucepan, heat the lard or butter and add the chopped onion; fry slightly.

  2. Add the tomato and grated corn, season with salt and pepper, and let simmer for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

  3. Remove from heat and mix in the chopped meat or chicken.

Stuff and fry

  1. Stuff the peppers with the mixture, dip them in batter, and fry until golden brown.

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. Tomato + corntop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,099 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Peppers
Form the edible shell that holds the filling and softens as it cooks.
Meat or chicken
Adds protein, savoury body and substance to the filling.
Tomato
Provides moisture and acidity that helps the filling become a cohesive sauce.
Onion
Builds a sweet, savoury aromatic base when fried in fat.
Batter
Forms a crisp golden coating that browns when the peppers are fried.

The step that matters

Roasting and peeling the peppers. Charring until light brown loosens the skin, and the cold water bath makes it easier to peel. Peppers that are under-roasted keep tough skins, while over-cooking makes them too soft to hold the filling.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, butter, tomato, corn, meat):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, tomato, corn, meat. 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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