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Dessert

Fried Egg Plant

Slices of eggplant are salted, drained, floured, and fried in lard and butter until crisp.

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

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 Egg Plant

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggplant

  1. Peel and slice the eggplant into ½ inch slices.

  2. Sprinkle the slices with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  3. Stack the slices and place a weight on top for at least 1 hour to drain the juice.

Fry

  1. Dry each slice and season again with salt and pepper.

  2. Dip the slices in flour.

  3. Fry in a mixture of lard and butter until crisp.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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, softening into tender flesh when fried.
Flour
Coats the slices so they brown and form a crisp outer crust when fried.
Lard
Conducts heat well and fries the slices to a crisp, golden surface.
Butter
Adds richness and browning flavour to the frying fat.

The step that matters

Draining the eggplant under a weight. Eggplant holds a lot of water. Salting and pressing it for an hour draws out juice, so the slices fry crisp rather than steaming and turning soggy in the hot fat.

Swap the eggplant

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Eggplantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, flour, 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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