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Fried Eggplant

Fried eggplant slices seasoned with salt, pepper, flour, and optionally coated with beaten egg and bread, then fried in butter or lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Fried Eggplant

Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Fried Eggplant

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the eggplant thinly.

  2. Soak the slices in a mixture of salt and water for 1 hour.

  3. Sprinkle the slices with pepper and salt.

Coat and fry

  1. Dredge the slices in flour.

  2. Fry the slices in hot butter or drippings until golden brown.

  3. Dip the slices in a beaten egg seasoned with pepper and salt.

  4. Coat the slices with grated bread.

  5. Fry the slices in deep lard.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Eggplant
Forms the tender body of each slice once cooked through.
Flour
Dry first coating that helps the egg and bread crumbs adhere.
Egg
Binds the grated bread to the slices so the coating holds during frying.
Finely grated bread
Forms a crisp outer crust when fried, adding browning and texture.
Butter or drippings
Adds fat and flavour while browning the slices in the first fry.

The step that matters

Fry the slices in deep lard. The coated slices need enough hot fat to brown quickly and crisp outside before the eggplant turns soggy or greasy; oil that is too cool lets the coating absorb fat and fall off.

Swap the eggplant

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

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

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