Skip to main content
Main

Peppers a LA Mexicana

Stuffed green peppers filled with seasoned meat, breadcrumbs, cheese, and spices, baked until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Bread and cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,130 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Peppers a LA Mexicana

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.

Prepare

  1. Cut out the insides of the peppers, leaving the outer shells intact.

  2. In a bowl, mix the chopped meat, bread crumbs, grated cheese, salt, cayenne pepper, and chopped onion if using.

Stuff and bake

  1. Stuff the mixture into the prepared peppers.

  2. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 20 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. Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Bread + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Cheese + oniontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,849 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Green peppers
Hollow shells that hold the filling and soften as they bake.
Cooked meat
Provides the main savory body and substance of the filling.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help the filling hold together rather than run out.
Grated cheese
Melts to bind the filling and adds richness and browning.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, meat, bread, cheese):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, meat, bread, cheese. 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMacaroni and CheeseMacaroni and Cheese102 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipes