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Egg Plant

Thin slices of eggplant are salted, floured, and fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Egg Plant

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel the eggplant and cut it into thin slices.

  2. Sprinkle salt between the slices and let them sit for 10–15 minutes.

  3. Drain the juice and cover the slices with cold water for 30 minutes.

  4. Drain the slices thoroughly and roll each in flour.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat a frying pan with butter, add the slices, season with pepper, and fry until golden brown.

  2. Serve immediately for the best taste.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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
Its spongy flesh soaks up fat and softens as it fries, becoming tender inside.
Flour
A thin coating that helps the slices brown and form a crisp, golden crust.
Butter
Provides the frying fat, which conducts heat and adds browning and rich flavor.

The step that matters

Drain the slices thoroughly before frying. Surface water cools the pan and turns the flour gummy, so the slices steam instead of browning. Drying them well lets the crust crisp and reduces spattering in the hot fat.

Swap the eggplant

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Eggplantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, 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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