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Dressed Eggplant

A boiled eggplant sliced, chopped, and sautéed with butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Eggplant and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,123 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Dressed Eggplant

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel the eggplant and cut it into slices.

  2. Boil the slices in water with 1 teaspoon of salt for 20 minutes.

  3. Drain and chop the eggplant finely.

Cook and serve

  1. In a saucepan, combine the chopped eggplant with 1 tablespoon of butter, 1 teaspoon of salt, and a dash of pepper.

  2. Stir continually until the mixture is boiling hot.

  3. Serve in a heated 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.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Eggplant + buttertop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together507 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
Forms the bulk of the dish, and its soft flesh becomes tender after boiling and chopping.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, moist texture to the chopped eggplant.

The step that matters

Stir continually until the mixture is boiling hot. Eggplant flesh can scorch on the bottom of a saucepan when heated without constant stirring. Continuous stirring spreads heat evenly and keeps the butter from separating or burning.

Swap the eggplant

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Eggplantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper. 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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