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Stuffed Eggplant

A baked dish of eggplant halves filled with seasoned pulp, butter, water, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Stuffed Eggplant

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Cut the eggplants in half lengthwise and scoop out the flesh, leaving about ½ inch of rind.

  2. Chop the pulp finely.

  3. Season the chopped pulp with salt, pepper, and butter.

  4. Cook the seasoned pulp in a frying pan for 10 minutes, stirring well.

  5. Add ½ cup of water and 1 cup of bread crumbs to the mixture.

Stuff and bake

  1. Sprinkle the insides of the eggplant shells with salt and pepper.

  2. Fill the shells with the mixture.

  3. Spread 1 cup of bread crumbs on top of the filled eggplants.

  4. Place the eggplants in a baking dish.

  5. Pour hot water into the dish until it reaches halfway up the sides of the eggplants.

  6. Bake for 1 hour.

  7. Serve hot on a napkin.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Eggplant + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together265 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggplants
Form the shells that hold the filling and provide the soft, mild body of the dish.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture from the pulp and give the filling body, with a browned top after baking.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the cooked pulp, carrying flavor and softening its texture.

Swap the eggplant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, bread, 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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