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Stuffed Egg Plant

A baked dish of eggplant halves filled with a seasoned mash of eggplant, celery, red peppers, butter, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. 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 the eggplant

  1. Quarter the eggplant and remove the inside, leaving the stem on the shell.

  2. Boil the eggplant quarters in salted water until tender.

Stuff and bake

  1. Mash the cooked eggplant and mix in celery, red peppers, salt, butter, and bread crumbs.

  2. Stuff the mixture back into the eggplant shells.

  3. Top with additional bread crumbs and bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  3. Eggplant + celerytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together64 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  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 main body of the filling and the shells that hold it.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and add body to the mashed filling, and brown on top.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the filling taste savoury and moist.
Celery
Adds crunch and a fresh, aromatic flavour to the mashed filling.
Red peppers
Add sweetness and colour to the filling.

The step that matters

Boil the eggplant until tender. Eggplant that is under-cooked stays spongy and bitter, while over-cooked pieces turn watery and fall apart. Cooking until fully soft lets the flesh mash smoothly and hold the filling well.

Swap the eggplant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, pepper, butter, bread. 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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