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Breaded Eggplant

Breaded eggplant slices are soaked in salt water, coated with egg and crushed crackers, then fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Eggplant and egg work together. They rank in the top 30% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 515 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyraldehyde, which smells malty, chocolate. The science ↓

Breaded Eggplant

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice and peel the eggplant.

  2. Soak the slices in strong salt water for 1 hour.

  3. Wipe the slices dry.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip each slice in the beaten egg.

  2. Roll the slices in crushed crackers.

  3. Fry in hot oil until golden brown.

  4. Drain well 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.

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 + 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 tender interior that the coating surrounds when fried.
Beaten egg
Acts as a glue so the cracker coating sticks to the slices and sets when fried.
Crushed crackers
Form a crisp, golden crust that browns in hot oil.

The step that matters

Wipe the slices dry. Surface moisture stops the egg and cracker coating from adhering and causes oil to splatter and cool. Drying the slices before coating helps the crust stay on and turn crisp rather than soggy.

“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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