Skip to main content
Main

Stuffed Peppers

A dish of bell peppers filled with a bread crumb and seasoning mixture, baked until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. 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

  1. Remove the stem end and seeds from the peppers.

  2. Parboil the peppers in boiling water for 10 minutes.

  3. Drain thoroughly, turning them upside down to dry.

Stuff and bake

  1. Prepare a stuffing with stale bread crumbs and seasonings, adding enough boiling water to moisten well.

  2. Fill the peppers with the stuffing.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 25 to 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve with or without toast and Brown sauce.

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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  2. Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Onion + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

  5. Meat + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Bell peppers
Form the edible shell that holds the stuffing and softens during cooking.
Stale bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the stuffing body so it holds together in the pepper.
Chopped meat
Adds savory richness and substance to the stuffing filling.

The step that matters

Drain the peppers thoroughly. Water left on the parboiled peppers dilutes the stuffing and makes the filling soggy during baking. Turning them upside down lets excess liquid run off before filling.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, pepper, bread):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, pepper, bread. 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.

More stuffed peppers recipes

Oyster 12Sweetbread 5Mexican 4Baked 3Pickled 3 See all 64 →

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesMeat CroquettesMeat Croquettes52 recipes