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Stuffed Onion and Eggplant

A dish of onions and eggplant hollowed, filled with cheese and raw egg, topped with buttered crumbs and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and eggplant match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 870 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Stuffed Onion and Eggplant

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Parboil the onions or eggplant until tender.

  2. Cut out the center of the onions or eggplant.

Fill and bake

  1. Mix the scooped-out center with cheese and raw egg.

  2. Fill the hollowed vegetables with the cheese mixture.

  3. Top with buttered crumbs and bake until golden.

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. Onion + eggplanttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together870 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Onion + cheesetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,849 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Eggplant + cheesetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together110 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Cheese + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,253 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Eggplant + eggtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together515 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the cheese mixture so it holds its shape when baked.
Cheese
Melts into the filling, adding richness and savory flavor.
Buttered crumbs
Toast in the oven to form a golden, crisp top layer.

The step that matters

Parboil until tender. Parboiling softens the eggplant or onion walls so they can be hollowed and hold the filling. Undercooked shells stay firm and tough, while overcooked ones tear or collapse.

Swap the eggplant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, cheese, egg):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Eggplantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, cheese, 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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