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Stuffed Egg Plant

A baked dish of eggplant halves filled with a mixture of cooked turnip greens, eggs, crackers, cheese, and olive oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Olive and eggplant match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 943 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Stuffed Egg Plant

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Cook turnip greens until tender, then chop them very fine.

  2. In a bowl, combine chopped greens, eggs, snowflake crackers, Parmesan cheese, salt, pepper, and olive oil.

  3. Parboil the eggplants until tender, then cut in half and scoop out the pulp.

  4. Fill the eggplant halves with the mixture.

Bake

  1. Place the stuffed eggplants in a baking pan and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 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.

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. Olive + eggplanttop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together943 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + eggplanttop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,123 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Turnip + eggplanttop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,252 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Parmesan cheese + olivetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Turnip greens
Adds bulk and a slightly bitter, vegetal flavor that balances the rich filling.
Eggs
Bind the filling together and set when baked, giving it structure.
Snowflake crackers
Absorb moisture and add body so the filling holds its shape.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savory, salty depth and helps the top brown as it bakes.
Olive oil
Contributes fat for moisture and a rounder, fruity richness.

The step that matters

Parboil the eggplants until tender. Eggplant is spongy and holds water; parboiling softens the flesh so it can be scooped and filled, and the cook should stop before it turns mushy so the halves keep their shape in the oven.

Swap the turnip

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, parmesan cheese, pepper, olive, eggplant):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, parmesan cheese, pepper, olive, eggplant. 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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