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Stuffed Egg Plant

A baked eggplant stuffed with bread crumbs, minced pork, parsley, salt, pepper, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Stuffed Egg Plant

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggplant

  1. Parboil the eggplant for 15 minutes if large, or 10 minutes if small.

  2. Make an incision in one side and scrape out the seeds.

  3. Prop open the slit with a stick and soak in ice-cold salt water for 1 hour.

Stuff and bake

  1. Stuff with a mixture of bread crumbs, minced pork, parsley, salt, pepper, and melted butter.

  2. Bind the slit with tape and place in a dripping pan.

  3. Pour in boiling water and baste with butter and water as it bakes.

  4. When tender, remove the tape, coat with butter, sprinkle with crumbs, and brown in the oven.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Eggplant + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together328 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

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

  4. Eggplant + peppertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,123 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Bread + porktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,371 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggplant
Forms the edible shell that holds the stuffing and softens into a tender body when baked.
Bread crumbs
Absorb butter and juices, giving the stuffing body and a light texture.
Minced fat pork
Adds fat and savoury richness that moistens the stuffing as it cooks.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the crumbs brown on the outside.

The step that matters

Soaking the eggplant in ice-cold salt water. Soaking firms the cut flesh and draws out some bitterness, so the eggplant stays sturdy and holds its shape while stuffed and baked.

Swap the eggplant

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Eggplantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, pork, parsley, pepper, 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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