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Stewed Egg Plant

A baked stew of mashed eggplant mixed with bread, marjoram, butter, and nutmeg, topped with grated bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 687 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Stewed Egg Plant

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Simmer the whole eggplants in plenty of water until tender.

  2. Drain, peel the skins, and mash the eggplants in a deep dish.

Season and bake

  1. Mix in the grated bread, marjoram, butter, and pounded nutmeg.

  2. Grate a layer of bread over the top.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until browned.

  4. Serve in the same 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. Marjoram + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Eggplant + marjoramtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together22 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,997 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Purple eggplants
Provide the main body of the dish, becoming soft and creamy when simmered and mashed.
Grated bread
Absorbs moisture from the mashed eggplant and helps give the topping a crisp, browned surface.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother texture while helping the top brown.
Powdered sweet marjoram
Adds a mild, herbal aroma that flavours the mashed eggplant.
Pounded nutmeg
Adds a warm, aromatic spice note that complements the eggplant.

The step that matters

Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until browned. Baking dries the surface and triggers browning through the Maillard reaction, which gives flavour and colour to the bread topping. Pulling it too early leaves the top pale and soft, while leaving it too long can scorch the crumbs.

Swap the eggplant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, marjoram, butter, nutmeg. 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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