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Stuffed Egg Plant

A baked dish of eggplant halves filled with a seasoned mash of eggplant flesh, breadcrumbs, butter, onion, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Stuffed Egg Plant

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 eggplant

  1. Cut the eggplant in half lengthwise and scoop out the flesh without breaking the shell.

  2. Boil the halves in slightly salted water until tender, then drain.

Fill and bake

  1. Mash the eggplant flesh and mix in the bread crumbs, butter, white pepper, salt, and chopped onion.

  2. Fill the eggplant shells with the mixture and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 20 minutes.

  3. Serve in the shells.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Bread + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 recipes

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

  5. Eggplant + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together265 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

Eggplant
Forms the edible shell and the soft, moist filling that holds the stuffing.
Toasted bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the mashed filling body and a light structure.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, more tender texture in the filling.

The step that matters

Scooping the flesh without breaking the shell. The shell is the serving vessel and must stay intact to hold the filling. Cooking the halves until tender first makes the flesh easier to scoop cleanly, and leaving a sturdy wall keeps the filling from leaking during baking.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (eggplant, bread, butter, onion):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against eggplant, bread, butter, onion. 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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