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Stuffed Egg Plant

A baked dish of hollowed eggplant filled with a mixture of cracker crumbs, almonds, olive oil, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Eggplant and olive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 943 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Stuffed Egg Plant

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a brisk oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the eggplant

  1. Wash the eggplant and place it in a kettle.

  2. Cover with boiling water and add a little salt; boil for 20 minutes.

  3. Cut the eggplant lengthwise into halves and carefully scoop out the insides, leaving ¾ inch of wall.

Make the filling

  1. Mix the scooped pulp with cracker crumbs, almonds, olive oil, and salt.

  2. If the mixture is too dry, add a little milk.

Stuff and bake

  1. Fill the eggplant shells with the mixture, heaping it up.

  2. Sprinkle a small amount of cracker crumbs on top.

  3. Place in a baking dish and bake in a brisk oven at 400°F (200°C) until the top is nicely browned.

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

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

  2. Almond + olivetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,875 recipes

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

  3. Eggplant + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together28 recipes

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

  4. Olive + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,828 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Almond + milktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,800 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggplant
Forms the edible shell and soft, moist body of the stuffing.
Cracker crumbs
Absorb moisture and bind the filling, helping it hold its shape.
Almonds
Add richness and nutty flavor, and a bit of texture to the filling.
Olive oil
Adds fat for richer flavor and helps the surface brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Scooping out the eggplant halves. Leaving about ¾ inch of wall keeps the shells sturdy enough to hold the filling. Scooping too deep can tear the skin, and the shells may collapse in the oven.

Swap the eggplant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (almond, olive, milk):

  1. Sweet potatofits about as well
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Broccolifits about as well
  4. Eggplantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, olive, milk. 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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