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Stuffed Peppers

A baked dish of green peppers filled with rice, optional meat or tomato, topped with bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,065 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Stuffed Peppers

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the peppers

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

  2. Scald the peppers in water for 5 to 8 minutes, then drain.

Make the filling

  1. For the filling, mix the cooked rice with salt, pepper, and butter.

  2. If using, add minced lamb, veal, or chicken to the rice mixture.

  3. For a tomato filling, mix stewed tomatoes and grated onion pulp with the rice.

  4. Fill the peppers about two-thirds full with the mixture.

  5. Top each pepper with buttered bread crumbs.

Bake

  1. Place the peppers closely together in a deep baking dish.

  2. Add ½ cup of stock or water to the dish.

  3. Cover and bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 10 minutes.

  4. Uncover and bake for an additional 15 minutes.

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. Rice + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,065 recipes

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

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  4. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. Rice + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 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

Green peppers
Hold the filling and soften as they bake, becoming tender in the steam.
Cooked rice
Forms the bulk of the filling, absorbing butter and juices to stay moist.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the rice and browns the bread crumb topping.
Buttered bread crumbs
Form a golden topping that browns in the oven and adds a crisp texture.
Stock or water
Creates steam in the covered dish so the peppers cook through gently.

The step that matters

Covering the dish for the first bake. Covering traps steam so the peppers soften evenly; uncovering afterward lets the bread crumb topping brown rather than stay soggy.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Potatofits about as well
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Tomatothe original
  4. Capsicumfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, rice, butter, lamb, onion, 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.

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