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Aubergine Diablee Grillee — Deviled and Broiled Eggplant

A dish of sliced eggplant coated in a mustard‑yolk mixture, breaded, broiled, and finished with melted butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Aubergine Diablee Grillee — Deviled and Broiled Eggplant

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggplant

  1. Cut the eggplants into ½‑inch slices and sprinkle with coarse sea salt.

  2. Let the slices sit for 1 to 2 hours.

  3. Press the slices lightly and dry them with a cloth.

Make and coat

  1. In a bowl, mix the egg yolks, olive oil, Worcestershire sauce, and English mustard.

  2. Coat the eggplant slices with the mixture, then cover them with bread crumbs.

Broil and serve

  1. Broil the eggplant over moderate heat until cooked through.

  2. Before serving, pour melted butter over the eggplant.

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. Eggplant + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together41 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  4. Olive + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Olive + breadtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,091 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggplants
Form the main body of the dish; salting draws out moisture so slices stay firmer when cooked.
Egg yolks
Bind the coating and add richness and a smooth, creamy texture.
Olive oil
Adds fat that carries flavour and helps the coating brown lightly under heat.
English mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that gives the dish its deviled character.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping that contrasts with the soft eggplant.
Melted butter
Adds richness and moisture to the finished eggplant.

The step that matters

Drying the salted eggplant slices. Salt draws water out of eggplant; if the slices are not pressed and dried, surface moisture will stop the coating and crumbs from sticking and will make the broiled result soggy rather than browned.

Swap the eggplant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, olive, sauce, mustard, bread, butter):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Eggplantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, olive, sauce, mustard, bread, 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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