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Fried Eggplant

Fried eggplant slices coated in egg and breadcrumbs, then fried in butter.

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

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fried Eggplant

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the eggplant into ¼ inch thick slices.

  2. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and let stand for 1 hour.

  3. Pour off the exuded juice, then wipe each slice dry.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip each slice first in the beaten egg, then in the rolled crackers or bread crumbs.

  2. Season with pepper and salt.

  3. Fry in butter until brown.

  4. Serve very hot.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Bread + peppertop 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 tender, mild body of the dish once cooked through.
Beaten egg
Binds the crumb coating to the slices so it adheres during frying.
Rolled crackers or bread crumbs
Forms a crisp, golden-brown crust when fried in butter.
Butter for frying
Conducts heat for even frying and promotes browning and rich flavor.

The step that matters

Wipe each slice dry after salting. Salting draws out moisture from the eggplant. Wiping the slices dry removes surface water so the egg and crumb coating sticks and the slices brown and crisp rather than steam in the butter.

Swap the eggplant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, bread, pepper, butter. 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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