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Egg Plant

Breaded eggplant slices fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Egg Plant

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 ↓

Egg Plant

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggplant

  1. Select young, fresh purple eggplants and remove the stem.

  2. Parboil the eggplants to reduce bitterness.

  3. Slice the eggplants into 1-inch thick slices without peeling.

Coat the slices

  1. Dip each slice in the egg yolk, then coat with grated bread, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  2. Let the coating dry, then repeat on the other side.

Fry

  1. Fry the slices until they are 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. 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. Bread + peppertop 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

Purple eggplants
Provides the soft, tender interior beneath the crisp coating.
Egg yolk
Acts as a binder so the crumbs stick to the slices.
Grated bread
Forms a crisp coating that browns when fried.

The step that matters

Letting the coating dry. A coating that is still wet slides off and soaks up more oil. Drying helps the crumbs set on the slice, so the crust stays attached and fries up crisp.

Swap the eggplant

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

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

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