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Baked Egg Plant

A baked eggplant stuffed with a mixture of boiled eggplant pulp, hard‑boiled eggs, onion, parsley, spices, butter, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Baked Egg Plant

Why it works: Parsley and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Baked 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 filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cut the eggplant in half and scoop out the inside, leaving the shells.

  3. Boil the eggplant pulp in salted water until tender.

  4. In a bowl, mix the boiled eggplant pulp with chopped hard‑boiled eggs, onion, parsley, pepper, salt, celery (or celery salt), and butter.

  5. Add bread crumbs to the mixture until it is stiff.

Bake and serve

  1. Fill the eggplant shells with the mixture, top with butter, and bake for about 40 minutes.

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. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Eggplant + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together328 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

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

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 soft pulp that holds the filling together.
Hard boiled eggs
Add richness and body, setting firmly as the filling bakes.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and stiffen the mixture so it holds its shape in the shells.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the filling and browns the topping in the oven.
Onion
Contributes aroma and savory flavor as it cooks into the filling.

The step that matters

Add bread crumbs until stiff. Eggplant pulp releases water as it cools and bakes. Adding bread crumbs gradually lets them absorb that moisture, so the filling holds its shape rather than running out of the shells.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against eggplant, egg, parsley, pepper, celery, 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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