Name: Egg Plant
Ingredients: 1 eggplant; ½ tablespoon butter; ¼ cup olive oil; 1 sprig garlic; 2 ripe tomatoes; salt; pepper

Why it works: Olive and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,539 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Egg Plant

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Peel the eggplant and cut it into small pieces.
Soak the eggplant in salt water for a while.

Cook

In a casserole, combine the eggplant, butter, olive oil, and garlic or onion.
Cook until tender.
Add the ripe tomatoes, cut into pieces, and stir everything together.
Season lightly with salt and pepper.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Olive + tomatotop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,539 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Eggplant + garlictop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together801 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Olive + garlictop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together25,665 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Eggplant + olivetop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together943 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Eggplant + tomatotop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together651 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 main body of the dish and softens into a tender, soft texture when cooked.
Olive oil: Carries flavor and adds fat, helping the eggplant cook softly and stay moist.
Butter: Adds richness and a rounder, savory flavor to the oil-cooked eggplant.
Ripe tomatoes: Add moisture and acidity that blend with the eggplant into a sauce-like mixture.
Garlic: Contributes aroma and savory flavor as it cooks gently in the fat.

Swap the eggplant

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

Capsicumfits about as well
Eggplantthe original
Potatofits about as well
Spinachfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, olive, garlic, tomato, 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.