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Fried Eggplant

A fried eggplant dish with salted slices coated in egg and breadcrumbs, served hot with ketchup.

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

Why it works: Eggplant and tomato work together. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 651 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Fried Eggplant

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggplant

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

  2. Sprinkle each slice with salt and pepper and pile them on a deep plate.

  3. Place another plate on top and weigh it down with a heavy flat iron to press out the juice for 1 hour.

Coat and fry

  1. Beat an egg lightly and add 1 tablespoon of boiling water.

  2. Dip each slice of eggplant into the egg mixture, then coat with bread crumbs.

  3. Heat 3 tablespoons of lard or dripping in a frying pan.

  4. Fry the slices until brown on one side, then flip and brown the other side.

  5. Add more fat as needed, ensuring it is hot before adding more eggplant.

Serve

  1. Drain on brown paper and serve very hot 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.

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 + tomatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together651 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Bread + tomatotop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggplant
Forms the main body of the dish; pressing draws out its juice so the slices fry crisp rather than soggy.
Egg
Acts as a binder that helps the bread crumbs stick to each eggplant slice.
Bread crumbs
Form a golden, crisp coating that browns during frying.
Lard or dripping
Conducts heat for frying and browns the coating, adding richness and flavour.

The step that matters

Keep the fat hot before adding more eggplant. Hot fat seals the breaded coating quickly, so it browns and crisps rather than soaking up oil and turning greasy. Adding slices to cool fat lowers its temperature and produces soggy results.

Swap the eggplant

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Eggplantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, bread, tomato, ketchup. 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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