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Fried Egg Plant

A fried eggplant dish with egg yolk batter and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Fried Egg Plant

Why it works: Milk and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Fried Egg Plant

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the eggplant.

  2. Sprinkle coarse sea salt between the slices or soak in salt water for 15 minutes.

  3. Heat the cooking fat in a pan.

Bread and fry

  1. Dip the eggplant slices in the beaten egg yolk mixed with milk.

  2. Coat the slices in cracker or stale bread crumbs.

  3. Fry the slices until golden brown and serve immediately.

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. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Eggplant + milktop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggplant
Forms the tender interior that contrasts with the crisp coating.
Egg yolk
Binds the milk and helps the crumbs adhere to the slices.
Cracker or stale bread crumbs
Forms a crisp, browned coating when fried.

The step that matters

Frying until golden brown. Eggplant is spongy and absorbs oil readily, so the pan must be hot enough to set the crumb coating quickly. Otherwise the slices soak up fat and turn greasy instead of crisp.

Swap the eggplant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, 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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