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Stuffed Green Pepper

A dish of green peppers stuffed with pork, rice, and eggs, simmered in tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Stuffed Green Pepper

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peppers

  1. Wash the green peppers, then remove the stems and seeds.

  2. In a bowl, mix the ground pork, rice, eggs, and a little salt.

  3. Stuff the peppers with the meat mixture.

Make the sauce

  1. Cook the tomatoes with parsley and the onion in a little water until soft.

  2. Strain the cooked tomatoes and place the stuffed peppers in the tomato sauce.

  3. Cook for 1 hour.

  4. Prepare a thickening by melting the lard, then whisking in the flour, sugar, and a little water.

  5. Add the thickening to the tomato sauce and cook the peppers for an additional 2 hours.

  6. Adjust the sauce thickness by adding more thickening for a thicker sauce or more water for a thinner sauce.

  7. Optionally, add sour cream before serving.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + ricetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,065 recipes

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

  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. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Ground pork
Forms the savoury filling that cooks inside each pepper.
Rice
Absorbs juices during long cooking, giving the filling body and a softer texture.
Eggs
Bind the meat and rice so the filling holds together when cooked.
Fresh tomatoes
Form the base of the sauce, adding moisture and acidity that the peppers simmer in.
Flour
Thickens the sauce when cooked with melted lard.
Lard
Carries the flour into a smooth roux that thickens the sauce and adds richness.

The step that matters

Adding the thickening to the sauce. Flour must be cooked with fat before liquid is added, or it stays lumpy. Adding it to the simmering tomato sauce and stirring gives an even, smooth thickness. Adjust with more thickening or water as needed.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, pork, tomato, rice, flour, sugar, parsley):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, pork, tomato, rice, flour, sugar, parsley. 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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