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Fried Egg Plant

Slices of eggplant coated in egg and breadcrumbs, fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Fried Egg Plant

Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓

Fried Egg Plant

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggplant

  1. Slice the eggplant into ⅓ inch thick slices.

  2. Place the slices in a deep dish and cover with salted water.

  3. Let them stand for 1 hour.

  4. Drain the slices and season with black pepper.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip each slice in the beaten egg, then coat with bread crumbs.

  2. Fry in boiling oil or butter for 10 minutes until golden brown.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Eggplant + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together265 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

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 contrasts with the crisp coating.
Beaten egg
Binds the bread crumbs to the slices so the coating adheres during frying.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns in the hot fat.

The step that matters

Frying in hot oil or butter. The fat must be hot enough to brown the coating quickly. If it is too cool, the crumbs absorb oil and turn greasy, while the eggplant inside stays soft.

Swap the eggplant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, egg, bread, 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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