Skip to main content
Main

Stuffed Eggplant

A baked dish of eggplant halves filled with a buttered pulp and bread crumb topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Stuffed Eggplant

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the shells

  1. Cut the eggplant in half lengthwise and scoop out the center pulp, leaving the rind about ½ inch thick.

  2. Cover the shells with cold water.

  3. Chop the pulp finely.

  4. Season the chopped pulp with salt and pepper.

  5. Drain the shells.

  6. Sprinkle the interior of the shells with salt and pepper.

Make the filling

  1. Add butter to the pulp and cook in a frying pan for 10 minutes, stirring well.

  2. Add water and 1 cup of bread crumbs to the mixture.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill the shells with the mixture.

  2. Spread 1 cup of bread crumbs on top of the filling.

  3. Place the eggplant halves in a baking dish.

  4. Pour enough hot water into the pan to come ⅓ up the sides of the eggplant.

  5. Bake for 1 hour.

  6. Serve hot.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Eggplant + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together265 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

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

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 pulp that makes up the filling.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture from the pulp and add body to the filling and topping.
Butter
Adds fat to the pulp, carrying flavor and helping it brown while cooking.

Swap the eggplant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, 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.

More stuffed eggplant recipes

Turkish 3 See all 156 →

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesOatmeal BreadOatmeal Bread51 recipes