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Egg Plants

A baked dish of eggplant halves stuffed with bacon, onion, breadcrumbs, and egg, topped with breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Eggplant and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 870 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Egg Plants

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 eggplants

  1. Parboil the eggplants, then split them in half and scoop out the insides.

Make the filling

  1. Chop the insides and mix with bacon, onion, bread crumbs, and the raw egg.

  2. Stuff the eggplant skins with the mixture.

Bake

  1. 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. Eggplant + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together870 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Eggplant + eggtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together515 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggplants
Form the hollow shells that hold the filling and soften when cooked.
Bacon
Adds fat and savory, smoky flavor that carries through the filling.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the filling body so it holds its shape.
Raw egg
Binds the filling together so it sets firm when baked.

The step that matters

Scooping out the eggplant insides. If the skins are torn or too thin, the filling will leak and the shells may collapse. Leaving a sturdy wall of flesh keeps the stuffing contained while the eggplant cooks through.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against eggplant, bread, egg. 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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