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Stuffed Eggplant

A baked eggplant stuffed with breadcrumbs, nutmeat, parsley, and coated in egg and zwieback.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Eggplant and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 328 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Stuffed 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. Parboil the eggplant in hot water for 15-20 minutes, depending on size.

  2. Make a hole in one side and remove the seeds.

  3. Soak the eggplant in ice-cold salted water for 1 hour.

Stuff and bake

  1. Stuff the eggplant with a mixture of breadcrumbs, grated nutmeat, minced parsley, and a little salt.

  2. Cover the hole with oiled paper and place it side down in an oiled pudding dish.

  3. Add a little water and bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven.

  4. Baste occasionally with the water in the dish until easily pierced with a straw.

Coat and finish

  1. Roll the eggplant in beaten egg, then in finely grated zwieback.

  2. Return to the oven and let brown.

  3. Serve sliced crosswise.

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 + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together328 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Eggplant + eggtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together515 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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, becoming soft and tender when parboiled and baked.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb moisture and add bulk to the stuffing, keeping it from becoming wet.
Nutmeat
Adds richness and body to the stuffing as a finely grated filler.
Egg
Binds the zwieback coating to the eggplant and helps it set and brown in the oven.
Zwieback
Forms a crisp, browning crust when finely grated and rolled over the egg coating.

The step that matters

Basting until easily pierced. Basting with the water in the dish keeps the eggplant moist while it cooks through. Testing with a straw confirms the flesh is tender before browning, since underbaked eggplant stays dense and watery.

Swap the eggplant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, egg):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Eggplantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, 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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