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Peppers Istuffed with Asparagus

A baked dish of bell peppers filled with a mixture of breadcrumbs, butter, asparagus, and seasonings, served with rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Peppers Istuffed with Asparagus

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. Cut off the stem end of the peppers and remove the insides.

  2. Simmer the peppers in hot water for 5 minutes, then drain.

Fill and bake

  1. In a bowl, mix the bread crumbs, melted butter, salt, mushroom catsup, asparagus, olive oil, and lemon juice.

  2. Fill the peppers with the mixture.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes, basting with butter or stock.

Serve

  1. Serve the stuffed peppers around a mold of boiled rice and garnish with heated pitted olives.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Asparagus + ricetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together261 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Asparagus + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together704 recipes

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

  4. Olive + ricetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,994 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  5. Mushroom + asparagustop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together400 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Bell peppers
Hollow shells that hold the stuffing and soften as they bake.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the butter and juices to give the stuffing body and a soft texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the filling and peppers brown as they bake.
Asparagus
Supplies the main vegetable flavour and a tender, moist texture to the filling.
Olive oil
Adds fat and moisture so the stuffing stays tender rather than dry.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the filling.

The step that matters

Simmer the peppers before filling. Brief simmering softens the pepper walls so they cook through in the oven at the same pace as the filling. Skipping or overdoing it leaves the shells either tough and raw or limp and collapsing.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, bread, butter, mushroom, asparagus, olive, rice):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Avocadofits about as well
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Cherryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, bread, butter, mushroom, asparagus, olive, rice. 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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