Name: Escalloped Egg Plant
Ingredients: 1 small eggplant; ½ teaspoon bread crumbs; 1 cup cream or rich milk; 2 tablespoons butter; 1 teaspoon finely minced parsley; pepper to taste; coarse sea salt to taste; a few drops of onion juice

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Escalloped Egg Plant

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the eggplant

Boil the eggplant until tender, then cut it in half and scoop out the pulp, discarding the seeds and skin.
Chop the pulp finely and mix it with bread crumbs, cream, butter, parsley, pepper, salt, and onion juice.

Bake and serve

Beat the mixture together and pour it into a baking dish.
Cover the top with dried bread crumbs and small bits of butter.
Bake at 400°F (200°C) until brown.
Serve in the baking dish.

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.

Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Eggplant + parsleytop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together328 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Eggplant + peppertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,123 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggplant: Its soft pulp forms the body of the dish once boiled and chopped.
Cream or rich milk: Adds moisture and richness, helping the mixture set softly as it bakes.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, and helps the top brown in the oven.
Bread crumbs: Add body to the mixture and form a crisp, browned topping.

The step that matters

Bake at 400°F (200°C) until brown. Baking until the top is browned without overcooking matters, because the custard-like mixture can dry out or become rubbery if left too long. Watching the colour is the cue to stop.

Swap the eggplant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, cream, butter, parsley, pepper, onion):

Potatofits better
Leekfits better
Carrotfits better
Eggplantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, cream, butter, parsley, pepper, onion. 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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Escalloped Egg Plant