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Stuffed Egg Plant

A baked eggplant stuffed with tomato, pepper, deviled ham, and bread crumbs, served with hot tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Stuffed Egg Plant

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggplant

  1. Cut the eggplant in half lengthwise and scrape out the inside, leaving walls at least ½ inch thick.

  2. Chop the pulp and mix it with the tomatoes, green pepper, and deviled ham.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill the eggplant halves with the mixture and top with buttered bread crumbs.

  2. Place in a baking pan and roast, basting often with hot water.

  3. Serve with hot tomato sauce when tender.

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 + tomatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together651 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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 edible shell that holds the filling while it roasts.
Deviled ham
Adds savory, salty flavour and fat to the chopped filling.
Buttered bread crumbs
Fat from the butter helps the topping brown as it bakes.
Chopped tomatoes
Add moisture and acidity to the filling as it cooks.

The step that matters

Basting often with hot water. Eggplant flesh dries out and toughens in the oven, so regular basting keeps the shell moist while it roasts until tender.

Swap the eggplant

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Eggplantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, ham, 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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