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Stuffed Egg Plant

A baked dish of eggplant halves filled with veal, onion, and cracker crumb mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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. Cut the eggplant in half crosswise and remove the inside.

  2. Soak the shells in salt water.

Make the filling

  1. Boil the veal until tender and save the stock.

  2. Boil the eggplant flesh and onion until thoroughly cooked.

  3. Mix the cooked eggplant, onion, veal, and stock.

  4. Season with salt and pepper, then thicken with cracker crumbs.

Bake and serve

  1. Fill the eggplant shells with the mixture, place them in a pan with a little water, and bake at 350°F (175°C) until the filling is brown.

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. Eggplant + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together870 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Veal + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,841 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (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 bulk of the filling and the shell that holds it while baking.
Veal
Provides meaty body and savory flavor to the filling.
Cracker crumbs
Absorb liquid and thicken the filling so it holds its shape.
Onion
Adds aromatic savory flavor to the filling.

The step that matters

Thicken the filling before baking. Cracker crumbs absorb moisture from the cooked eggplant and stock. If the filling is too wet, it will run out of the shells and bake unevenly, so it should be thick enough to hold its shape when spooned in.

Swap the eggplant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, onion, pepper. 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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