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Eggplant

Eggplant slices are soaked, steamed, battered, and fried to make a crispy dish.

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

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Eggplant

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggplant

  1. Peel the eggplant and slice it thinly.

  2. Soak the slices in a mixture of salt and water for 10-15 minutes, then drain.

  3. Steam the slices for 5 minutes.

Make the batter and fry

  1. In a bowl, mix the milk, melted butter, eggs, baking powder, and enough flour to create a thick batter.

  2. Dip the steamed slices into the batter and fry in hot butter until golden brown.

  3. Alternatively, dip the slices in a beaten egg, then coat with cracker crumbs, ensuring each slice is dry before dipping.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and help the fritters set and hold together when fried.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, making the fritters lighter and puffier.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a batter that coats the slices and provides structure.
Milk
Loosens the batter and adds moisture to the coating.
Melted butter
Adds richness and flavor to the batter and helps browning.

The step that matters

Drying the slices before dipping. Eggplant releases water when cut and salted. Any moisture left on the slices thins the batter or coating, so it slides off and fries unevenly instead of forming a crisp golden crust.

Swap the eggplant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, egg, 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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