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Baked Egg Plant

Baked eggplant stuffed with onion, meat, breadcrumbs, spices, and a raw egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Baked Egg Plant

Why it works: Eggplant and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,123 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Baked Egg Plant

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggplant

  1. Cut off the stalk end of the eggplant about 1.5 inches.

  2. Scoop out the inside with a spoon.

Make the filling

  1. Mix the scooped eggplant with the boiled onion, chopped meat, bread crumbs, pepper, salt, and spices.

  2. Add the raw egg and mix well.

Bake

  1. Fill the eggplant with the mixture.

  2. 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.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggplant
Forms the hollow shell that holds the filling while it cooks.
Raw egg
Binds the filling so it holds together when baked.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture from the filling and help give it a softer texture.
Chopped meat
Provides the main savory body and protein of the filling.

The step that matters

Add the raw egg and mix well. The raw egg is the binder. If it is not mixed evenly through the filling, parts may stay loose and crumble or leak when baked, while other parts set unevenly.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against eggplant, meat, bread, pepper, egg. 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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