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Stuffed Eggplant Fruits

A baked dish of eggplant halves filled with a mixture of chopped eggplant, breadcrumbs, anchovies, parsley, mushroom, pepper, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 Eggplant Fruits

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the chopped insides of the eggplants, bread crumbs, anchovies, parsley, mushroom, and pepper, and cook for a few minutes.

  3. Remove from heat and mix in the beaten egg to bind the mixture.

Stuff and bake

  1. Fill the centers of the eggplants with the mixture and sprinkle with buttered bread crumbs.

  2. Place in a greased baking tin and cover with buttered paper.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve hot, garnished with fresh parsley.

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
Their soft flesh becomes tender and holds the filling inside each shell.
Egg
Binds the cooked filling together so it holds its shape when stuffed.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the filling body and a light texture.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the filling and crumb topping brown lightly.
Anchovies
Add a salty, savory depth to the filling.

The step that matters

Mix in the beaten egg to bind the mixture. Egg proteins set when heated, so the filling holds together in the shells. Adding it while the mixture is still very hot from the saucepan, after removing it from heat, keeps the egg from scrambling into lumps.

Swap the eggplant

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

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

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