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Fried Eggplant

Fried eggplant slices coated in egg‑milk batter and fried until golden.

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 flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 371 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fried Eggplant

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice and peel the eggplant.

  2. Soak the slices in salt water for one hour.

  3. Dry the slices between two towels.

Fry and serve

  1. Dip each slice in a batter made from the eggs, milk, and flour.

  2. Fry in hot fat until golden brown.

  3. Drain well before serving.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Eggplant + milktop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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 main body of the dish, becoming soft and tender when fried.
Eggs
Bind the batter so it clings to the eggplant and sets into a coating.
Milk
Thins the batter so it coats the slices evenly.
Flour
Thickens the batter and helps it form a crisp, golden crust when fried.

The step that matters

Dry the slices between two towels. Eggplant holds a lot of water, and surface moisture would make the batter slide off and the oil spatter. Drying the slices lets the batter adhere and the crust brown rather than steam.

Swap the eggplant

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

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

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