Skip to main content
Main

Egg Plant

Fried slices of eggplant coated in batter or beaten egg and crushed crackers, cooked in butter and lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Egg Plant

Why it works: Butter and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Egg Plant

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the eggplant into ¼ inch thick slices.

  2. Sprinkle the slices with coarse sea salt and let them stand for 15 minutes.

Fry

  1. Dip the salted slices in batter and fry in a mixture of butter and lard.

  2. Alternatively, dip the slices in beaten egg, roll in crushed crackers, and fry in the same way.

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. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Eggplant + buttertop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together507 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. 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

Eggplant
Forms the tender interior that contrasts with the crisp outer coating.
Batter
Forms a coating that turns crisp and golden when fried.
Butter and lard
Provide the frying fat that conducts heat and browns the coating.
Egg
Binds the crushed crackers to the slices so the coating adheres during frying.
Crushed crackers
Form a crunchy, browned coating when fried.

The step that matters

Salting and resting the slices. Salt draws water out of the eggplant, and the 15-minute rest gives that moisture time to leave. Drier slices take on less oil and hold a crisper coating, so skipping this step can leave the fried slices soggy.

Swap the eggplant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg. 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 fried eggplant recipes

Breaded 8Cakes 3 See all 173 →

You might also like

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