Name: Baked Eggplant
Ingredients: small oval eggplants; coarse sea salt; soft bread crumbs; chopped chives; stoned and chopped olives; black pepper; olive oil; tomato sauce

Why it works: Olive and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,539 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Baked Eggplant

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Clean and halve the eggplants, then soak them in salted water for 30 minutes.
Drain and dry the eggplants.
Scoop out a tablespoon of the center from each half and chop it finely.
Mix the chopped eggplant with an equal weight of soft bread crumbs, chives, olives, salt, and pepper.
Moisten the mixture slightly with olive oil and fill the center of each eggplant half.
Roast in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 25 minutes.
Serve with tomato sauce.

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.

Olive + tomatotop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,539 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Eggplant + olivetop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together943 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Eggplant + tomatotop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together651 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Eggplant + chivetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Chive + olivetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,633 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Swap the chive

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

Capsicumfits better
Spinachfits better
Lettucefits better
Chivethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against eggplant, bread, olive, pepper, tomato, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.