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Egg Plant

Eggplant is boiled, scooped, seasoned, mixed with egg, breaded, 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: Egg and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Egg Plant

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggplant

  1. Boil the eggplant in water until soft.

  2. Cut the eggplant in half and scoop out the insides.

  3. Season the scooped eggplant.

Shape and fry

  1. Take a tablespoonful of the mixture, dip it in egg, then coat with bread crumbs.

  2. Fry in hot lard until golden brown.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Eggplant + eggtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together515 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 soft, moist filling that makes up the body of each bite.
Egg
Binds the eggplant mixture and helps the bread crumbs adhere to each bite.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating when fried.
Lard
Conducts heat for frying and browns the crumb coating.

The step that matters

Frying in hot lard until golden brown. If the lard is not hot enough, the coating absorbs more oil and turns greasy instead of crisp. Frying at a steady high heat sets the crumb coating quickly and keeps the soft filling inside from becoming oily.

Swap the eggplant

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Eggplantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, 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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