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Baked Egg Plant

A baked eggplant stuffed with a tomato, onion, and pepper mixture, topped with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Baked Egg Plant

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Baked Egg Plant

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Cut the eggplant in half and scoop out the center, leaving about ⅓ inch of skin.

  2. Chop the inside of the eggplant very finely.

  3. Chop the tomatoes, onion, and green pepper separately into small pieces.

Fill and bake

  1. In a bowl, mix the chopped eggplant, tomatoes, onion, green pepper, bread crumbs, parsley, salt, and black pepper until smooth.

  2. Fill the eggplant shells with the mixture.

  3. Top the filled shells with butter.

  4. Bake at 350 °F (175 °C) for about 30 minutes.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Eggplant + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together328 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. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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 the soft, moist filling base.
Tomatoes
Add moisture and acidity that keep the filling juicy during baking.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid from the vegetables so the filling holds together and sets.
Butter
Adds fat that promotes browning on the top and enriches the flavor.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and depth to the filling.

The step that matters

Chopping the eggplant interior very finely. Fine pieces cook through evenly with the other vegetables in the same time. Large chunks stay firm or watery while the shell over-softens, and the filling may not bind well with the crumbs.

Swap the onion

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

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

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