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Nut Stuffed Eggplant

A baked eggplant filled with a mixture of nuts, onion, and olive oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Nut Stuffed Eggplant

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cut the eggplant in half lengthwise and scoop out the flesh.

  3. In a skillet, heat olive oil and sauté the onion until translucent.

  4. Mix the chopped nuts and eggplant flesh with the sautéed onion.

Stuff and bake

  1. Season with salt and pepper, then fill the eggplant halves with the mixture.

  2. Place the stuffed eggplant in a baking dish and bake for 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.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Onion + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Eggplant + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together870 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Mixed nuts + olivetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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, once its flesh is mixed in, adds moisture and body to the filling.
Mixed nuts
Add richness and a crunchy texture that contrasts with the soft eggplant.
Onion
Sweetens and adds savory depth once softened in the olive oil.
Olive oil
Carries flavor and adds fat, helping the onion soften and the filling feel rich.

Swap the mixed nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (eggplant, onion, olive, pepper):

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Sesamefits better
  3. Lentilsfits better
  4. Mixed nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against eggplant, onion, olive, 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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