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Stuffed Egg Plant, American Style

A dish of eggplant halves filled with a sautéed eggplant, mushroom, and onion mixture, baked with Espagnole sauce and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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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 ↓

Stuffed Egg Plant, American Style

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the eggplant

  1. Cut the eggplants in half lengthwise and score the inner part close to the skin without detaching it.

  2. Fry the eggplant halves in hot lard, cut side down, and drain on a linen towel.

  3. Scoop out the inner part, leaving only the shell.

  4. Chop the scooped-out eggplant finely.

Make the filling

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and lightly fry the onions.

  2. Add the chopped eggplant and mushrooms, and reduce the moisture.

  3. Stir in the Espagnole sauce, bread crumbs, parsley, salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  4. Slowly mix in the egg yolks until well combined.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill the eggplant shells with the mixture, arrange in a buttered pan, and sprinkle with bread crumbs.

  2. Top each with a small piece of butter and bake at 300°F (150°C) until golden.

  3. Serve with a brown Italian sauce.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggplants
Form the edible shell and bulk of the filling, becoming tender when fried and baked.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth as they soften in butter.
Mushrooms
Release moisture and add earthy flavour to the filling, which is reduced to concentrate it.
Egg yolks
Bind the filling and set during baking to give it a firm, sliceable body.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and add body to the filling, and brown to form a golden top.
Espagnole sauce
Adds rich savoury flavour and body to the filling.

The step that matters

Reduce the moisture in the eggplant and mushrooms. Eggplant and mushrooms release a lot of water. If the mixture stays wet, the filling becomes loose and watery, and the egg yolks may not set properly, so cook it until the liquid has evaporated.

Swap the eggplant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter, mushroom, sauce, bread, parsley, 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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