Name: Stuffed Egg Plant
Ingredients: 1 full grown eggplant; bread crumbs (equal to the amount of eggplant); salt to taste; pepper to taste; 1 teaspoon sugar; 1 tablespoon butter

Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓

Stuffed Egg Plant

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

Cut the eggplant in half lengthwise and scoop out the insides, leaving about ½ inch of skin.
Chop the insides finely and mix with an equal amount of bread crumbs.
Add salt, pepper, and sugar to the mixture.

Cook and bake

Heat the butter in a skillet and add the mixture, cooking for about 10 minutes while stirring occasionally.
Return the mixture to the eggplant shells and bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for about 30 minutes.
Serve in the shells.

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.

Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Eggplant + peppertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,123 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Eggplant + breadtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together265 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,964 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 and the soft, moist filling base.
Bread crumbs: Absorb moisture from the eggplant and give the filling body and structure.
Butter: Adds fat and richness and helps the filling brown in the skillet.