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Spanish Eggplant

Layered fried eggplant topped with tomato and pepper mixture, scrambled eggs, olives, Spanish peppers, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,539 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Spanish Eggplant

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggplant

  1. Peel and slice the eggplant into ½-inch thick slices.

  2. Soak the sliced eggplant in salted cold water for 2 hours.

  3. Dry the eggplant slices.

Make the tomato mixture

  1. Scald and peel the tomatoes, then cut them into pieces.

  2. In a stew pan, combine the tomatoes, green peppers (cut into small pieces), onions (sliced thin), and salt.

  3. Simmer the mixture for 1.5 hours.

Fry and assemble

  1. Fry the eggplant slices in hot butter.

  2. On a platter, layer 3 slices of fried eggplant, each topped with a drained portion of the tomato mixture.

  3. Scramble the eggs.

  4. Place the scrambled eggs on the top layer of eggplant.

  5. Sprinkle with chopped olives and Spanish peppers, and garnish with parsley.

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. Tomato + olivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,539 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Eggplant + olivetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together943 recipes

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

  4. Eggplant + tomatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together651 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Eggplant + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together328 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

Eggplant
Forms the sliced base layers that hold the tomato mixture and eggs.
Tomatoes
Simmered down to form a thick, flavourful sauce that moistens the layers.
Eggs
Scrambled and placed on top, adding richness and a soft, set texture.
Green peppers
Cooked into the tomato mixture, adding savoury, slightly bitter flavour.
Onions
Simmered with the tomatoes, adding sweetness and aromatic depth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Soaking the eggplant. Soaking in salted water draws out some of the eggplant's bitter compounds and moisture, and drying the slices afterwards helps them fry rather than steam in the butter.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (eggplant, tomato, pepper, butter, egg, olive, parsley):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against eggplant, tomato, pepper, butter, egg, olive, parsley. 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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