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Fried Eggplant

A dish of sliced eggplant coated in egg yolk and breadcrumbs, then fried until golden.

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 ↓

Fried Eggplant

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggplant

  1. Slice the eggplants about ½ inch thick and soak them in salt water for 1-2 hours to remove bitterness.

  2. Remove the eggplants, wipe them dry, and season with black pepper.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip each slice in egg yolk, then coat with bread crumbs on both sides.

  2. Fry the slices in hot oil or butter until golden brown and cooked through.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggplants
Provide the main body, which turns soft and tender inside while the coating crisps outside.
Egg yolk
Acts as a binder that helps the bread crumbs stick to the eggplant slices.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp coating that browns in the hot fat.
Oil or butter
Conducts heat to brown the coating and adds richness and flavor.

The step that matters

Fry in hot oil or butter. The fat must be hot enough to brown the crumb coating quickly. If it is too cool, the slices absorb more oil, become greasy, and the coating turns soggy before it crisps.

Swap the eggplant

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

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

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