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Stuffed Egg Plant

A baked eggplant stuffed with bread crumbs, minced pork, parsley, and butter, then browned and sliced.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 Egg Plant

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggplant

  1. Parboil the eggplant for 15 minutes if large, or 10 minutes if small.

  2. Make an incision in one side and scrape out the seeds. Prop open the slit with a stick.

  3. Soak the eggplant in ice-cold salt water for 1 hour.

Stuff and bake

  1. Stuff the eggplant with a mixture of bread crumbs, minced pork, parsley, salt, pepper, and melted butter.

  2. Bind the slit with tape.

  3. Place the eggplant in a dripping pan.

  4. Pour boiling water into the pan.

  5. Baste the eggplant with butter and water as it bakes.

  6. Bake until a straw can penetrate easily.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the tape and coat the eggplant with butter.

  2. Sprinkle fine bread crumbs on top.

  3. Place the eggplant cut side down on a tin plate to brown lightly.

  4. Slice the eggplant. Serve.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Bread + porktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,371 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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 body that holds the stuffing while it softens during baking.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the butter and meat juices, giving the stuffing body and a soft, moist texture.
Minced fat pork
Adds fat and savory flavor, keeping the stuffing moist as it cooks.
Melted butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the stuffing and crumb topping brown.

The step that matters

Bake until a straw can penetrate easily. The eggplant is done when its flesh is fully tender, which a straw test shows. Underbaked flesh stays firm and bitter, while the basting water keeps the surface from drying out before the interior softens.

Swap the eggplant

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Eggplantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, pork, parsley, pepper, 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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