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Baked Egg Plant

A baked eggplant stuffed with a mixture of cooked eggplant, onion, bread crumbs, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Baked Egg Plant

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 ↓

Baked Egg Plant

Oven, in the book's wordsA quite hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quite hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Remove the interior of the eggplant with a silver knife, leaving a shell about ¼ inch thick.

Make the filling

  1. Cook the eggplant pieces and onion in water until tender.

  2. Mix the cooked eggplant and onion with bread crumbs, salt, and pepper.

Bake and serve

  1. Fill the eggplant shell with the mixture and bake until the shell is tender but not shriveled.

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.

  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. Onion + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 recipes

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

  5. Eggplant + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together265 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.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aroma to the filling as it softens.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture from the cooked vegetables so the filling holds together.

The step that matters

Baking the filled shell until tender but not shriveled. Eggplant flesh collapses and dries out with prolonged heat. Baking only until the shell is tender keeps the skin intact and the filling moist.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against eggplant, bread, 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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