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Stuffed Bell Peppers, Brazilian Style

A Brazilian-style dish of bell peppers filled with sautéed vegetables, Allemande sauce, breadcrumbs, egg yolks, and pork fat, baked until cooked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 Bell Peppers, Brazilian Style

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Prepare the bell peppers by removing the tops and seeds.

  2. In a saucepan, melt the butter and sauté the onion until half cooked.

  3. Add the mushrooms and green peppers, and simmer until moisture is reduced.

  4. Stir in the Allemande sauce, bread crumbs, salt, nutmeg, parsley, and garlic. Mix in the egg yolks until well combined.

Stuff and bake

  1. Stuff the prepared peppers with the mixture and cover each with a slice of pork fat.

  2. Arrange the stuffed peppers in a buttered flat pan.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until cooked through.

  4. Serve with brown Italian sauce.

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. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 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 + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 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

Bell peppers
Form the edible shell that holds the filling and softens as it bakes.
Egg yolks
Bind the filling and set when baked, giving it a firmer, custard-like texture.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour while the onion softens and browns gently.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture from the filling and help it hold together when stuffed.
Mushrooms
Add savoury, earthy flavour and moisture that is reduced before stuffing.
Allemande sauce
Adds creamy richness and body to bind the filling together.

The step that matters

Reducing the mushroom and green pepper mixture. If the moisture is not cooked off before the egg yolks are added, the filling stays wet and loose, and it can weep or fail to set properly in the oven.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, butter, mushroom, sauce, bread, nutmeg, parsley):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, mushroom, sauce, bread, nutmeg, 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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