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Stuffed Egg Plant

A baked dish of hollowed eggplant filled with a buttered mash of its flesh, cheese or almonds, topped with breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Eggplant and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,123 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. 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

  1. Boil the eggplant until tender.

  2. Cut it in half and remove the insides, then mash them.

  3. Season the mash with butter, pepper, and salt.

  4. If desired, add grated cheese or chopped almonds.

Stuff and bake

  1. Return the mixture to the eggplant shells.

  2. Top with buttered breadcrumbs and brown in the oven at 350°F (175°C).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + cheesetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Eggplant + cheesetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together110 recipes

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

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 soft, moist filling once boiled and mashed.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the mashed filling and helps the breadcrumbs brown.
Grated cheese or almonds
Adds savory richness and body to the filling, with cheese melting and almonds adding a bit of crunch.
Buttered breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden browned topping in the oven.

The step that matters

Brown the topping in the oven. Butter-coated breadcrumbs brown through the Maillard reaction at oven heat, so the topping needs enough time and heat to turn golden rather than pale and soggy.

Swap the eggplant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, cheese. 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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