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English Stuffed Peppers

Green peppers stuffed with bread crumbs, meat, and herbs, baked in stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and thyme are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,585 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

English Stuffed Peppers

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 peppers

  1. Remove the stems and cut the peppers in half lengthwise, removing the seeds.

  2. Boil the pepper halves in water for 5 minutes, then transfer to cold water.

Make and fill

  1. Soak the bread crumbs in stock and mix with chopped meat, onion juice, savory, thyme, salt, and pepper.

  2. Drain the peppers and fill them with the stuffing, heaping it up.

  3. Sprinkle browned crumbs and bits of butter on top.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the stuffed peppers in a deep pie dish, pour ½ cup stock around them, and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

  2. Serve the peppers directly from the baking dish.

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 + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Bread + meattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Bell peppers
Their softened halves form the edible shell that holds the stuffing.
Bread crumbs
Soaked in stock, they bind the filling and keep the meat moist.
Chopped meat
Forms the savory body of the stuffing.
Butter
Melts over the top and helps the crumbs brown.

The step that matters

Boil the pepper halves for only 5 minutes. Boiling softens the pepper walls so they can be filled and baked, but over-boiling makes them limp and prone to tearing. Cooling them in cold water stops the cooking so they keep their shape.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, bread, meat, thyme, butter):

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

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