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Stuffed Peppers

A baked dish of green peppers filled with sweetbreads, mushrooms, celery, garlic, bread, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Stuffed Peppers

Oven, in the book's wordsA steady oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

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

  2. Soak the peppers in cold water for 1.5 hours.

  3. Chop the sweetbreads, mushrooms, celery, and garlic finely.

Stuff and bake

  1. In a bowl, mix the chopped ingredients with the bread, pepper, salt, nutmeg, and butter.

  2. Stuff the peppers with the mixture.

  3. Place a piece of fat pork in a roasting pan and set the stuffed peppers upright in the fat.

  4. Before baking, drizzle melted butter over the peppers and sprinkle with flour.

  5. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 30 minutes, basting with water from the pan as they cook.

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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Celery + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  5. Mushroom + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,700 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweetbreads
Provide the rich, meaty filling that forms the body of the stuffing.
Bread
Soaks up moisture and binds the filling so it holds its shape in the pepper.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the filling and browns the peppers' surface in the oven.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and earthy flavor to the filling.
Green peppers
Act as edible cups that hold the filling and soften as they bake.

The step that matters

Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 30 minutes, basting with water from the pan as they cook.. Peppers can dry out or scorch in the oven. Basting with pan liquid keeps the surface moist while the filling heats through and the pepper walls soften.

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, mushroom, celery, clove, bread, nutmeg, butter):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, mushroom, celery, clove, bread, nutmeg, 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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