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Escalloped Eggplant

A baked dish of sliced eggplant layered with a bread and tomato mixture, topped with grated zwieback and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Escalloped Eggplant

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the eggplant

  1. Peel the eggplant and slice it into ¼‑inch thick slices.

  2. Sprinkle the slices with coarse sea salt and let them sit in a bowl for 1 hour.

  3. Rinse off the salt and boil the eggplant slices in a granite or porcelain kettle until tender.

Layer and bake

  1. In an oiled pudding dish, layer the eggplant slices.

  2. Squeeze out excess water from the soaked stale bread and mix it with strained tomatoes, nut oil, and a little salt.

  3. Spread a layer of the bread mixture over the eggplant slices, then add another layer of eggplant.

  4. Repeat the layers, finishing with a layer of grated zwieback and a sprinkle of grated nutmeg.

  5. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown.

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. Eggplant + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together53 recipes

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

  3. Eggplant + peanuttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together39 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Tomato + peanuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together315 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggplant
Forms the tender layers that give the dish its body and soft, creamy texture.
Stale bread
Soaked and squeezed, it binds the layers and gives a soft, custardy crumb.
Strained tomatoes
Adds moisture and acidity that keep the layers juicy during baking.
Nut oil
Adds fat for richness and helps the top brown lightly in the oven.
Grated zwieback
Forms a crisp, golden topping that browns during baking.

The step that matters

Bake until golden brown. Baking at a moderate heat lets the moisture from the tomatoes and bread set into the layers while the top browns. Too low and the dish stays watery; too high and the top scorches before the centre is set.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Corianderfits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against eggplant, tomato, peanut, 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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