Name: Stuffed Peppers
Ingredients: large mild green peppers; chopped cold meat; seasoning; coarse sea salt; butter; water

Why it works: Meat and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,594 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Stuffed Peppers

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.

Cut the tops off the peppers and remove the seeds.
Soak the pepper shells in hot water for 5 minutes.
Fill the peppers with seasoned chopped cold meat.
Tie the tops back on the peppers.
Place the stuffed peppers in a baking pan and add water, salt, and butter until half covered.
Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 1 hour, turning once or twice.

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.

Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,594 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Pepper + meattop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together8,777 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

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