Name: Stuffed Mangoes or Bell Peppers
Ingredients: 2 cups finely toasted bread; 1 cup tomatoes, chopped; 1 cup olives, chopped; 1 small onion, finely chopped; 1 tablespoon oil; Salt to taste; 2 mangoes or bell peppers; Water for baking

Why it works: Tomato and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,539 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Stuffed Mangoes or Bell 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 the filling

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
In a bowl, combine the toasted bread, tomatoes, olives, onion, oil, and salt.

Stuff and bake

Cut off the stem ends of the mangoes or bell peppers and remove the seeds.
Stuff the mangoes or bell peppers with the filling.
Place them in a baking tin and add water to prevent burning.
Bake for 30 minutes.

Serve

Serve on shredded lettuce with parsley scorched in butter.

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.

Tomato + olivetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,539 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Tomato + mangotop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together225 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,633 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Olive + oniontop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together29,779 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Olive + mangotop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together488 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Toasted bread: Absorbs the juices and gives the filling body so it holds its shape.
Tomatoes: Add moisture and acidity that keep the filling soft and flavourful as it bakes.
Olives: Add salty, savoury flavour and richness to the filling.
Oil: Adds fat that carries flavour and helps the filling stay moist.
Mangoes or bell peppers: Act as the edible shell that holds the filling and softens as it bakes.

The step that matters

Add water to the baking tin. The water in the tin keeps the bottom of the peppers or mangoes from scorching in the dry oven heat, and the steam helps the shells soften evenly while the filling heats through.

Swap the mango

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, tomato, olive, onion):

Avocadofits better
Cherryfits better
Plumfits about as well
Mangothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, tomato, olive, onion. 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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Stuffed Mangoes or Bell Peppers