Why it works: Rice and chicken are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,769 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓
Green Peppers Stuffed with Shrimps
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the peppers
Plunge the peppers into hot fat, let them stand for a moment, then remove them.
Rub off the skin with a cloth.
Cut around the peppers a little way from the stems.
Take out the pieces with stems attached.
Remove the partitions and seeds.
Chop the onion and pepper trimmings finely.
Discard the stems.
Make the filling
Cook the chopped mixture with curry powder and butter until softened but not browned.
Add the rice, shrimps, and broth.
Mix thoroughly.
Add salt if needed.
Bake and serve
Fill the peppers with the mixture.
Set the peppers on rounds of toast in a buttered gratin dish.
Cook for 10 to 15 minutes or until very hot.
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.
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Rice + chickentop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,769 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
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Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,814 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
-
Rice + oniontop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together10,433 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together68,474 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Shrimp + chickentop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together988 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-ethyl-3,6-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Green peppers
- Serve as the hollow edible shell that holds the filling during baking.
- Boiled rice
- Bulks out the filling and absorbs the broth so it stays moist rather than loose.
- Shrimps
- Provide the main protein and savory flavor of the filling.
- Chicken broth
- Moistens the rice and shrimp mixture so it heats through without drying.
- Butter
- Softens the onion and pepper trimmings and carries the curry flavor.
- Curry powder
- Adds warm, aromatic spice flavor to the cooked onion and pepper base.
The step that matters
Cook the chopped mixture until softened but not browned. Gentle cooking softens the onion and pepper and blooms the curry powder in butter without scorching. Browning would turn the sugars bitter and dull the delicate shrimp flavor.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, rice, butter, shrimp, chicken):
- Capsicumfits better
- Potatofits better
- Asparagusfits about as well
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, rice, butter, shrimp, chicken. 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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