Why it works: Eggplant and tomato work together. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 651 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓
Scalloped Eggplant
Ingredients
Directions
The book says “a very hot oven”. The 400°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.
Prepare the eggplant
Peel the eggplant and slice it into ¼‑inch thick slices.
Sprinkle each slice with coarse sea salt and let them sit in a cool place for 1 hour.
Soak the stale bread in cold water.
Fry the eggplant slices in hot fat until both sides are brown, then remove them from the pan.
Make the tomato and bread mixture
In the same pan, fry the peeled and sliced tomatoes for 5 minutes, adding more fat if needed.
Squeeze the soaked bread to remove excess water and add it to the tomatoes.
Season the mixture with salt, pepper, and cayenne, and heat until scalding hot.
Assemble and bake
Layer the bread and tomato mixture with the fried eggplant in a baking dish.
Top with bread crumbs, season with salt and pepper, and dot with butter.
Bake in a very hot oven (400°F/200°C) until the crumbs are brown, then serve hot.
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.
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Eggplant + tomatotop 3% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together651 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,923 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Eggplant + peppertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,123 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Bread + tomatotop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,013 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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 dish, softening into a tender layer when fried and baked.
- Stale bread
- Soaks up moisture from the tomatoes and binds the layers into a soft, spoonable mass.
- Tomatoes
- Provide moisture and acidity that cook down into a sauce between the layers.
- Bread crumbs or cracker dust
- Form a crisp, browned topping when baked.
- Butter
- Adds richness and helps the crumb topping brown.
The step that matters
Frying the eggplant until both sides are brown. Salted eggplant releases water and absorbs fat quickly, so it can turn greasy or stay pale if the pan is not hot enough. Browning it well gives it a good texture and flavour before baking.
Swap the eggplant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, tomato, pepper, butter):
- Capsicumfits better
- Potatofits better
- Carrotfits about as well
- Eggplantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, tomato, pepper, butter. 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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