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Stuffed Egg Plant, Brazilian Style

Stuffed eggplant filled with a savory mixture of rice, mutton, onions, capers, anchovy paste, tomato sauce, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Eggplant and capers share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 45 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Stuffed Egg Plant, Brazilian Style

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Prepare the eggplant as described in recipe No. 683.

  2. In a bowl, mix the stuffing with capers and anchovy paste.

  3. Cook the rice in white broth until well cooked and dry.

  4. Heat olive oil in a saucepan.

  5. Lightly fry the onions.

  6. Add garlic, chopped eggplant, and roast mutton.

  7. Simmer slowly.

  8. Stir in the cooked rice.

  9. Season with salt and red pepper.

  10. Add tomato sauce and parsley.

  11. Mix well.

  12. Let the mixture cool.

Stuff and bake

  1. Stuff the eggplant with the mixture.

  2. Sprinkle with bread crumbs.

  3. Arrange in a buttered pan.

  4. Drizzle with olive oil.

  5. Bake at 350°F (175°C).

Serve

  1. Serve with reduced tomato sauce.

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. Eggplant + caperstop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together45 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Eggplant + olivetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together943 recipes

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

  4. Capers + olivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,688 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Rice + olivetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,994 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggplant
Forms the main body of the dish and absorbs the stuffing's flavours as it bakes.
Rice
Absorbs liquid and binds the stuffing, giving it a moist, cohesive texture.
Roast mutton
Adds savoury richness and meaty substance to the stuffing.
Onions
Lightly fried to build a sweet, savoury base for the stuffing.
Capers
Add a sharp, briny acidity that cuts through the richness of the mutton.
Tomato sauce
Contributes moisture and acidity that keeps the stuffing from drying out.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before stuffing. Stuffing hot filling into the eggplant can make the shells soften and tear and the mixture loose and runny. Cooling lets the stuffing firm up so it holds its shape when baked.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (eggplant, capers, anchovy, sauce, rice, onion, olive):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Oreganofits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against eggplant, capers, anchovy, sauce, rice, onion, olive. 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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