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Melitzanes Fournou

A baked dish of sliced eggplant topped with a tomato, onion, and garlic sauce.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Melitzanes Fournou

Serves 4
Oven200 °C
Time45 minutes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Saute the onions in a frying pan.

  2. Clean, chop and mash the fresh tomatoes (use 2 cans of preserved chopped tomatoes instead).

  3. Mash the garlic cloves in a mortar.

  4. Mix the tomato mash with the garlic.

  5. Wash the eggplants.

  6. Slice them horizontally into 1½ cm thick slices.

  7. Butter a pan and place the eggplant slices.

Make the sauce

  1. Boil the tomato mash with the onions for a while.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the tomato mixture over the eggplant slices.

  2. Preheat the oven to 200 °C and bake for 45 minutes.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

230Calories
4 gProtein
14 gFat
26 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 7 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Olive Oil1 tbsp (14g)119
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Eggplant1 cup cubed (82g)35
Tomato1 medium (123g)22
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Garlic1 clove (3g)4
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Tomato + olivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,539 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Garlic + eggplanttop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together801 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Garlic + olivetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,665 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

Eggplants
Form the bulk of the dish, becoming tender and creamy as they bake under the sauce.
Fresh tomatoes
Provide the moist, acidic base of the sauce that softens and coats the eggplant.
Chopped onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth to the sauce as they soften in the pan.
Garlic cloves
Contribute pungent aroma that mellows during cooking and flavours the tomato sauce.
Olive oil
Carries flavour and keeps the dish moist, adding richness to the cooked vegetables.

The step that matters

Boil the tomato mash with the onions for a while. Cooking the tomato mash reduces its water content and concentrates flavour. If it stays watery, the sauce will thin out and make the eggplant soggy during baking.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, tomato, garlic, eggplant, pepper, olive):

  1. Cuminfits better
  2. Oreganofits better
  3. Basilfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, tomato, garlic, eggplant, pepper, 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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