Skip to main content
Main

Stuffed Peppers

A baked dish of green peppers filled with rice, optional meat, tomatoes, onion, butter, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

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

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

  3. Prepare the filling by boiling or steaming the rice, then season with salt, pepper, and butter.

  4. If using, mix in minced lamb, veal, or chicken, and optionally add stewed tomatoes and grated onion pulp.

Stuff and bake

  1. Fill the peppers about ⅔ full with the mixture and top with buttered bread crumbs.

  2. Place the stuffed peppers closely together in a deep baking dish and add ½ cup of stock or water.

  3. Cover and bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 10 minutes, then 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
Act as the edible shell that holds the filling while the flesh softens during baking.
Rice
Provides bulk and a tender, absorbent texture that fills the pepper cavities.
Minced lamb, veal, or chicken
Adds savory richness and protein-based flavor to the filling when used.
Stewed tomatoes
Contribute moisture and acidity that brighten the filling when used.
Buttered bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden browned topping as they bake in butter.

The step that matters

Covering the baking dish for the first 10 minutes. Covering traps steam so the peppers soften through before the top browns. Uncovering afterward lets the crumbs crisp and the surface dry and brown.

Swap the tomato

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

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesRice FrittersRice Fritters84 recipes