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Baked Eggplant

A baked dish of eggplant shells filled with a mixture of eggplant flesh, bread, cream, butter, sage, salt, pepper, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Baked Eggplant

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 eggplant

  1. Boil the eggplants until soft, then place them in cold water for a few minutes.

  2. Cut the eggplants in half lengthwise and remove the flesh without breaking the shells.

Make the filling

  1. Mix the eggplant flesh with grated bread, cream, butter, sage, salt, pepper, and the chopped whites and mashed yolks of the hard-boiled eggs.

Bake

  1. Fill the eggplant shells with the mixture, sprinkle grated bread on top, and brown in the oven at 350°F (175°C).

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. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Eggplant + sagetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together12 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggplants
Their soft flesh becomes the body of the filling, and their shells serve as edible containers.
Grated bread
Absorbs moisture and binds the filling, and forms a crisp browned topping.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the filling soft and smooth after baking.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and flavour, and helps the topping brown.
Hard-boiled eggs
Egg white and yolk add structure and body, helping the filling hold together when baked.

The step that matters

Removing the flesh without breaking the shells. Boiled eggplant is soft and fragile, so cutting too deeply or scooping roughly can tear the skins. Intact shells are needed to hold the filling during baking.

Swap the eggplant

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Eggplantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, cream, butter, sage, pepper, 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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