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Egg Plant

Fried slices of eggplant coated in batter or crushed crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ½ inch thick slices.

  2. Sprinkle the slices with coarse sea salt and layer them.

  3. Let the eggplant sit for 15 minutes.

Fry

  1. Dip the slices in batter and fry in butter or lard.

  2. Alternatively, dip in egg, roll in crushed crackers, and fry 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 main body of the dish, becoming tender when fried.
Batter
Forms a crisp coating that browns during frying and holds the slices together.
Egg
Binds the crushed crackers to the slices and helps them brown evenly.

The step that matters

Sprinkle the slices with coarse sea salt and let them sit. Salt draws moisture out of the eggplant, which reduces bitterness and helps the slices absorb less oil and fry more evenly.

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.

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