Name: Stewed Peppers
Ingredients: 4 peppers; 1 tablespoon butter; 4 tablespoons cream; salt to taste

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Stewed Peppers

Ingredients

4 peppers
1 tablespoon butter
4 tablespoons cream
salt to taste

Directions

Prepare

Cut the peppers in half and remove the seeds and pith.
Cut the peppers into small pieces and add them to boiling salted water.

Cook and serve

Boil for 30 minutes.
Drain the peppers, add salt to taste, and mix in the butter.
Serve as a vegetable.

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.

Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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

Peppers: Provide the main vegetable body and mild, sweet flavor that the dish is built around.
Butter: Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the cooked peppers.
Cream: Adds richness and a creamy texture when combined with the cooked peppers.

“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.