Skip to main content
Main

Fried Eggplant

A fried eggplant dish coated in a batter of egg, milk, and flour, then deep‑fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Fried Eggplant

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 ↓

Fried Eggplant

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggplant

  1. Slice the eggplant into ½‑inch thick slices and peel them.

  2. Soak the slices in a mixture of salt and water for 1 hour, placing a plate on top to keep them submerged.

  3. Dry each slice with a paper towel.

Make the batter and fry

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg and mix in the milk, flour, salt, and pepper to create a batter.

  2. Dip each slice into the batter.

  3. Heat oil in a frying pan until boiling, then fry the battered slices until golden brown.

  4. Drain on paper towels and serve 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. Eggplant + peppertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,123 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Eggplant + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together371 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggplant
Forms the tender, soft interior that contrasts with the crisp coating.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps it set and coat the slices during frying.
All-purpose flour
Forms the batter's structure and helps the coating turn crisp and golden.
Milk
Thins the batter to a coating consistency and adds moisture and browning.

The step that matters

Dry each slice before battering. Surface moisture from the soaked eggplant creates steam and makes the batter slide off or fry unevenly, so each slice should be patted dry before dipping.

Swap the eggplant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, flour, pepper. 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.

More fried eggplant recipes

Breaded 8Cakes 3 See all 173 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes