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Stuffed Egg Plant, Parisian Style

A baked dish of hollowed eggplants filled with a mixture of chicken, pork, marrow, onions, and breadcrumbs, topped with butter and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,417 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Stuffed Egg Plant, Parisian Style

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.

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Prepare the eggplants by cutting off the tops and hollowing them out.

  2. In a saucepan, melt the butter and lightly fry the chopped onions.

  3. Add the chopped eggplant, roast chicken, roast pork, and marrow to the onions and simmer for 20 minutes.

  4. Stir in the fresh bread crumbs, season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  5. Add the egg yolks and mix well with chopped parsley.

Bake and serve

  1. Fill the hollowed eggplants with the stuffing and top with additional bread crumbs and a piece of butter.

  2. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until golden brown and serve with Madeira wine 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.

  1. Chicken + porktop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,417 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  2. Eggplant + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together53 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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  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
Form the hollow shells that hold the stuffing and soften as they bake.
Egg yolks
Bind the stuffing so it holds its shape when baked and sliced.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and add body, keeping the stuffing from becoming watery.
Marrow
Adds richness and fat that keeps the stuffing moist and flavorful.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor to the onions and browns the golden top.
Roast chicken and roast pork
Provide the savory meat base and body of the stuffing.

The step that matters

Simmering the stuffing before adding the egg yolks. Eggs thicken when heated, so the yolks should be mixed in only after the filling has cooled slightly. Adding them to a very hot mixture can scramble them and leave the stuffing grainy rather than cohesive.

Swap the eggplant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter, chicken, pork, bread, pepper, nutmeg. 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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