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Stuffed Peppers
6 green peppers 1/2 onion 1 1/4 cups cooked meat (veal, chicken or ham) 1 cup water or stock 1 1/4 cups moistened bread-crums Salt and pepper 1 tablespoon drippings or butter Cut a slice from the stem end of each pepper. Remove seeds and parboil peppers ten minutes. Mix finely chopped cooked meat with moistened bread-crums, add salt, pepper and the onion, grated. Stuff the peppers with this mixture and stand them in a dripping-pan. Add water or stock. Bake fifteen minutes, basting frequently. Cooked rice may be used instead of the bread-crums.
A thrifty use for leftover roast meat, written for a cook who knew her own stove. The two things the original leaves out are the oven temperature and what to do with the tablespoon of fat.
- Oven temperatureNo heat is given. Bake at 375-400F; the filling is already cooked and the peppers are parboiled, so the oven is only browning and heating through.
- The unassigned fatThe tablespoon of drippings or butter never appears in the method. Work it into the filling to keep it from drying, or dot it over the tops before baking.
- ParboilingTen minutes in boiling water is on the long side for thin-walled modern bell peppers; five to seven minutes gives a shell that still stands up in the pan. Drain them cut-side down before filling.
- Dripping-panAny shallow roasting pan or baking dish that holds the peppers upright and close together. They need to touch or lean on each other, or they tip and spill.
- Bread-crumsSoft crumbs from stale bread, moistened with stock or milk until they clump but are not soupy. Dry packaged crumbs will drink the liquid and turn the filling pasty.
- The stock in the panThe cup of water or stock is for basting and to keep the bottoms from scorching, not for the filling. Fifteen minutes of frequent basting is the whole technique here; without it the exposed stuffing dries out.
- SeasoningCooked ham, veal or chicken carries the dish, so taste the filling before stuffing. Grated raw onion is sharp when raw and mellows in the oven, but half an onion grated is a fair amount for this quantity.
- YieldSix peppers, one apiece as a light main course with bread, or six as a side. The filling makes roughly two and a half cups.
Stuffed peppers earned their place in an American general-purpose cookbook of this period the same way hash and croquettes did: as a respectable way to serve up Sunday's roast on Tuesday. The quantities here are keyed to leftovers rather than to a shopping list, and the note that "cooked rice may be used instead of the bread-crums" tells you the author expected whichever starch was already in the kitchen. Sweet bell peppers were widely available market produce in the United States by this period.