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To Stuff Greex Peppers

A baked dish of green peppers filled with a savory mixture of butter, flour, milk, tomato, herbs, bread, bacon, and meat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

To Stuff Greex 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.

Make the filling

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Slowly whisk in the flour until smooth, then add the milk and stir until thickened.

  3. Remove from heat and mix in the chopped tomato, parsley, celery tops, onion, stale bread, bacon, and meat.

Stuff and bake

  1. Cut the tops off the peppers and remove the seeds.

  2. Stuff the peppers with the mixture and replace the tops.

  3. Place the stuffed peppers in a baking dish and cook in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes.

  4. Before serving, sprinkle the tops with cracker crumbs.

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. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth white sauce that binds the filling.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which thickens as it is stirred.
Stale bread
Absorbs liquid and helps give the filling a soft, moist body.
Meat (in the method)
Provides the main savory filling and richness in the stuffing.
Green peppers
Act as the edible shell that holds the filling during baking.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce. Flour must be whisked in slowly and cooked with the butter so it dissolves without lumps. Adding milk too fast or not stirring leaves clumps, and the sauce will not thicken evenly to bind the filling.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, milk, tomato, parsley, celery, bread):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, tomato, parsley, celery, 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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