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To Dress Egg Plant

A fried dish of boiled eggplant mashed with butter, eggs, flour, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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To Dress Egg Plant

Why it works: Eggplant and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,123 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

To Dress Egg Plant

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggplant

  1. Boil the eggplants in salted water until tender.

  2. Remove the skin and scoop out the insides.

  3. Mash the insides finely and mix in the butter, beaten eggs, flour, pepper, and salt.

Fry

  1. Heat the lard in a pan until boiling.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into the lard and fry until golden brown.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Eggplant + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together371 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggplants
Form the bulk of the cakes, providing the soft, moist body once mashed.
Eggs
Bind the mashed eggplant so the cakes hold their shape while frying.
Flour
Absorbs moisture and helps the mixture set into firm cakes.
Butter
Adds richness and a smoother, softer texture to the mashed eggplant.

The step that matters

Drop spoonfuls into hot lard. The lard must be boiling before the mixture goes in. Hot fat sears the outside quickly, so the cakes brown and hold their shape instead of soaking up grease and falling apart.

Swap the eggplant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, egg, flour, pepper):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Eggplantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, flour, pepper. 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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