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Eggplant

A dish of mashed eggplant formed into cakes, battered, and fried or baked with cream and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Eggplant

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Eggplant

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggplant

  1. Boil the eggplant until soft enough to mash.

  2. Remove the skin from the boiled eggplant and mash it.

  3. Season the mashed eggplant with salt and pepper.

  4. Form the seasoned eggplant into cakes about ½ inch thick.

Fry the cakes

  1. Make a batter with the eggs, flour, and a little milk.

  2. Dip the cakes into the batter.

  3. Heat lard in a frying pan.

  4. Fry the battered cakes until light brown on one side, then turn and fry until brown on the other side.

Make the baked slices

  1. Season the mashed eggplant with salt and pepper for baking.

  2. Stir in a little cream and a slice of butter in a baking dish.

  3. Cut the mixture into slices ⅓ inch thick.

  4. Sprinkle the slices with grated stale bread and fry the slices.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Eggplant + peppertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,123 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggplant
Forms the soft, mashable body that holds the cakes together.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help it set and brown when fried.
Flour
Thickens the batter so it coats the cakes and crisps when fried.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture to the baked eggplant mixture.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour to the baked eggplant mixture.

The step that matters

Frying the battered cakes. The batter must be coated evenly and the lard hot enough so the outside sets and browns quickly. If the oil is too cool, the coating absorbs fat and turns greasy instead of crisp.

Swap the eggplant

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

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

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