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Timbals of Egg Plant, Mackay Style

A baked molded dish of fried eggplant and braised mutton with herbs, breadcrumbs, and egg yolks, finished with Madeira wine sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Timbals of Egg Plant, Mackay Style

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the eggplant

  1. Peel and cut the eggplants lengthwise into 6 pieces each.

  2. Trim to make them uniform and season with salt.

  3. Cover and let sit for 1 hour.

  4. Drain the eggplants and dry them on a napkin.

  5. Melt butter in a flat saucepan, add the eggplants and fry lightly.

  6. Drain on a napkin.

  7. Once cooled, arrange the fried eggplants in a buttered timbal mold to cover the sides and bottom.

Make the filling

  1. Peel and slice 2 more eggplants.

  2. Flour them and fry lightly in clarified butter on both sides.

  3. Drain on a napkin.

  4. Cut the braised mutton into small pieces.

  5. Combine with cooked fine herbs, bread crumbs, salt, pepper, and raw egg yolks, and mix well.

Bake and serve

  1. Layer the stuffing and fried eggplant in the mold until filled.

  2. Cover with buttered paper and bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) for 30 minutes.

  3. Turn the mold onto a dish and remove carefully.

  4. Glaze with reduced Madeira wine sauce.

  5. Serve with brown Italian 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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Eggplant + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together371 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mutton + breadtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,488 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggplants
Form the tender body of the timbale, soaked up by salting and dried so they fry rather than steam.
Butter
Adds richness and browning to the fried eggplant and helps it release from the mold.
Raw egg yolks
Bind the mutton and herb stuffing so it holds its shape when turned out.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and add body to the stuffing so it stays set and not wet.
Braised mutton fillets
Provide the savoury, tender meat filling that gives the timbale its main flavour.
Madeira wine sauce
Adds sweetness and depth to the glaze brushed over the finished timbale.

The step that matters

Turning the mold out. The eggplant lining must be fully cooled and the egg-bound filling set before turning out; if it is too hot or too soft, the timbale can break apart and lose its shape.

Swap the eggplant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, mutton, bread, pepper, egg, madeira wine):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Eggplantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, mutton, bread, pepper, egg, madeira wine. 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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