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Fried Eggplant

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 Eggplant

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the eggplant 2-3 hours before cooking by peeling and slicing it into ¼-inch thick slices.

  2. Sprinkle each slice with salt and pepper, then place them on a dish and weigh them down to extract bitterness.

Bread and fry

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

  2. Fry the slices in hot fat until golden brown.

  3. Season with a little salt, drain on paper, and serve hot.

  4. Alternatively, dip the eggplant in thin batter instead of egg and crumbs, and fry as directed.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. 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 main body of the dish, cooking to a soft interior under a crisp coating.
Beaten egg
Binds the bread crumbs to the eggplant slices so the coating adheres during frying.
Fine bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns in the hot fat.

The step that matters

Drawing out bitterness under weight. Salting and weighting the slices draws out moisture and bitter compounds from the eggplant. Doing this well ahead lets the flesh firm up and reduces the water that would otherwise make the coating soggy during frying.

Swap the eggplant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, egg, 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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