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Egg Plant

Mashed eggplant mixed with crackers or dry bread, seasoned, formed into patties, and fried.

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 the eggplant

  1. Peel and slice the eggplant.

  2. Boil the slices until tender.

Make the patties

  1. Mash the boiled eggplant and season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  2. Roll the crackers or dry bread and stir into the mixture until very thick.

  3. Form the mixture into patties.

Fry

  1. Fry the patties in hot lard or with a piece of salt pork.

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. Bread + porktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,371 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Pepper + porktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

  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

Eggplant
Forms the soft, mashable body of the patties.
Crackers or dry bread
Absorbs moisture and thickens the mashed mixture so it holds its shape.
Lard or salt pork
Fries the patties, adding fat for browning and a savory flavor.

The step that matters

Stirring in the crackers or dry bread until very thick. Eggplant releases a lot of water once mashed. The starch in the crackers or bread soaks up that moisture, so the mixture needs to be stiff enough to form patties that do not fall apart in the hot fat.

Swap the eggplant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, bread, pork. 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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