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Stuffed Egg Plant

A baked dish of eggplant halves filled with a meat and bread crumb mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Eggplant and tomato work together. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 651 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Stuffed 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 the eggplant

  1. Cover the eggplant with water and simmer for 20 minutes.

  2. Remove from water, cut in half, and scrape out the inside to create firm shells.

  3. Press out moisture from the pulp.

Make the filling

  1. Melt 1 ½ tablespoons of butter, add onion, and heat until softened.

  2. Stir in the meat, tomato, and eggplant pulp mixed with an equal quantity of bread crumbs.

  3. Add the beaten egg, salt, and pepper to taste, and cook for about 15 minutes, mixing well.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill the two shells, shaping the filling up and round over the top.

  2. Cover with bread crumbs mixed with the remaining 1 ½ tablespoons of butter.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until brown and serve very hot.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

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

  4. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  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

Eggplant
Forms the firm shells and its pulp adds bulk and moisture to the filling.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the onion soften and the top brown.
Cold meat
Provides the main body and savory flavor of the filling.
Egg
Binds the filling so it holds its shape when cooked.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture from the pulp and form a browned crust on top.

The step that matters

Press out moisture from the pulp. Eggplant releases a lot of water. If the pulp stays wet, the filling becomes loose and soggy, and the egg cannot bind it properly in the oven.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against eggplant, butter, tomato, meat, egg, 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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