Skip to main content
Main

Egg Plant

Eggplant cakes made from boiled and mashed eggplant mixed with egg and flour, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
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. Peel and slice the eggplant.

  2. Soak the slices in cold water.

  3. Boil until tender, then drain and mash finely.

Make the cakes

  1. Season with salt and pepper, then mix in the beaten egg and flour.

  2. Form the mixture into small cakes.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat lard in a pan until scalding, then drop in the cakes and fry until golden.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Eggplant + eggtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together515 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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
Forms the soft, moist body of the cakes once boiled and mashed.
Egg
Binds the mashed eggplant so the cakes hold their shape.
Flour
Absorbs moisture and helps the cakes firm up and hold together.
Lard
Conducts heat for frying and browns the outside to a golden crust.

The step that matters

Draining and mashing the eggplant. Eggplant holds a lot of water. If it is not drained well before mixing, the mixture stays wet, the egg and flour cannot bind it, and the cakes may fall apart or fry unevenly.

Swap the eggplant

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Eggplantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, 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.

More eggplant cakes recipes

Fried 3 See all 11 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes