Why it works: Eggplant and egg work together. They rank in the top 30% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 515 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyraldehyde, which smells malty, chocolate. The science ↓
Fried Egg Plant
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Remove the skins from the eggplant and cut it into thin slices.
Soak the slices in salt water for 30 minutes.
Dip the soaked slices in beaten egg.
Fry
Fry the eggplant slices in hot fat until golden brown.
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.
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Eggplant + eggtop 30% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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 tender, soft body of the dish once cooked.
- Egg
- Coats the slices so they brown and form a crisp, golden crust when fried.
The step that matters
Fry the eggplant slices in hot fat until golden brown. Fat that is hot enough sears the coating quickly, so the slices brown and crisp without soaking up grease. Fat that is too cool lets the eggplant absorb oil and turn soggy and heavy.
“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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