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Stuffed Peppers

A pickled dish of peppers filled with a cabbage mixture, seasoned with celery and mustard seeds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Stuffed Peppers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peppers

  1. Remove the tops and seeds from the peppers.

  2. Soak the peppers in a strong brine overnight.

Make the filling

  1. Chop the cabbage, mix with salt, and let it sit for 15 minutes.

  2. Boil the vinegar with the sugar in a pot.

  3. Press out the moisture from the cabbage and add it to the boiling vinegar.

  4. Add celery and mustard seed to taste, and heat through.

Pack and seal

  1. Stuff the mixture into the peppers and pack them into glass jars.

  2. Boil the vinegar hard and pour it over the stuffed peppers, then seal the jars.

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. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + cabbagetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  5. Cabbage + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,840 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

Peppers
Their flesh softens during brining and holds the filling while adding sweet, mild flavour.
Cabbage
Provides crisp texture in the filling, which is kept crunchy by pressing out excess moisture first.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that pickles the peppers and preserves the filling.
White sugar
Balances the sharp acidity of the vinegar with sweetness.

The step that matters

Pressing the moisture out of the cabbage. Cabbage holds a lot of water. If it is not pressed dry before going into the hot vinegar, it dilutes the pickling liquid and makes the filling soggy instead of crisp.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, egg, vinegar, sugar, cabbage, mustard):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, egg, vinegar, sugar, cabbage, mustard. 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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