Skip to main content
Main

Forcemeat for Peppers

A stuffed pepper filled with a mixture of rice, onion, butter, ground meat, peppers, and tomatoes.

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

Why it works: Rice and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,065 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Forcemeat for Peppers

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 the filling

  1. Combine all ingredients without washing them, using just enough tomato to hold the mixture together.

Stuff and bake

  1. Stuff peppers with this mixture.

  2. Bake in the oven for 30 minutes at 350°F (175°C).

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. Rice + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  5. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 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

Steamed hiawatha rice
Provides the bulk and body of the filling, so it holds its shape inside the pepper.
Ground beef or chicken
Adds protein and a firm, savoury texture that sets as it cooks.
Strained tomatoes
Supplies moisture and acidity that bind the filling and keep it from drying out.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the filling taste rounded and mellow.
Minced onion
Contributes aroma and a mild savoury flavour as it cooks.

The step that matters

Adding just enough tomato. Tomato is the only liquid, so too much makes the filling wet and soggy as it bakes, while too little leaves it crumbly and loose. Adding it gradually until the mixture just holds together gives a filling that stays moist but firm enough to hold its shape in the pepper.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, butter, beef, pepper, tomato):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, butter, beef, pepper, tomato. 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.

More stuffed peppers recipes

Oyster 12Sweetbread 5Mexican 4Baked 3Pickled 3 See all 64 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipes