Skip to main content
Main

With Minced Meat

Layered eggplant with minced meat, onions, tomatoes, and water, simmered or baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

With Minced Meat

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Slice the eggplants into less than ½‑inch thickness.

  2. Mince the meat, season with salt and pepper, and fry in butter with finely chopped onions.

Assemble and cook

  1. In a deep vessel, layer the eggplant and fried minced meat alternately.

  2. Slice the tomatoes over the top and add 1 cup of plain water.

  3. Simmer on low heat or bake at 350°F (175°C) for 20 to 25 minutes.

  4. Serve hot.

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 + tomatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together651 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  4. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 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

Mutton or lamb
Provides the rich, savoury meat base that flavours the whole dish as it fries and simmers.
Eggplants
Form the soft, layered body of the dish, absorbing the juices from the meat and tomatoes as they cook.
Tomatoes
Add moisture and gentle acidity that brightens the meat and helps form a light sauce.
Dry onions
Soften and sweeten as they fry in butter, building a savoury aromatic base for the meat.
Butter
Adds fat for frying, carrying flavour from the onions and meat and giving a richer finish.

The step that matters

Simmer on low heat or bake at 350°F (175°C) for 20 to 25 minutes. Gentle, moderate heat lets the eggplant cook through and become tender while the layers meld, without scorching the bottom of the vessel or drying out the liquid.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, eggplant, butter, parsley, tomato, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, eggplant, butter, parsley, tomato, pepper. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipes