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Eggplant Fritters

Eggplant fritters are fried pieces of eggplant mixed with flour, egg, onion, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Eggplant Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggplant

  1. Pare and split open the eggplant.

  2. Boil the eggplant until tender.

  3. Remove as many seeds as possible.

Make the batter

  1. Mix the eggplant with flour, egg, salt, pepper, and chopped onion.

Fry and serve

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into boiling lard.

  2. Fry until brown.

  3. Serve with tomato ketchup.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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 bulk of the fritter, providing soft, moist flesh once boiled.
Flour
Absorbs moisture and helps bind the mixture so the fritters hold their shape.
Egg
Binds the mixture together and helps it set as it cooks.
Onion
Adds savory flavor and aroma to the fritters.

The step that matters

Fry until brown. The mixture is moist from the boiled eggplant, so the lard must be hot enough when spoonfuls go in. Too cool a pan lets the fritters soak up fat and turn greasy, while proper heat browns the outside and sets the batter.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against eggplant, flour, egg, 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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