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Eggplant Fritters

Eggplant fritters are small cakes made from boiled eggplant pulp mixed with flour, eggs, and seasonings, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Eggplant Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pulp

  1. Boil the whole eggplant in salted water mixed with vinegar for 20 minutes or until tender.

  2. Mash the boiled eggplant and drain the mashed eggplant.

  3. Measure the pulp.

Make and fry the fritters

  1. Add the flour and beaten eggs to the pulp.

  2. Season the mixture with salt and pepper.

  3. Shape the mixture into small cakes.

  4. Fry the cakes in hot fat 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.

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. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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 pulp
Forms the bulk of the fritter and provides its soft, moist interior.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together and help the cakes hold their shape when fried.
Flour
Adds body to the mixture so the cakes are less likely to fall apart.

The step that matters

Draining the mashed eggplant. Eggplant holds a lot of water. If the mashed pulp stays wet, the mixture becomes loose, the cakes spread or stick, and they fry unevenly instead of forming firm, golden cakes.

Swap the eggplant

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Eggplantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, vinegar, pepper, flour. 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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