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Fried Eggplant

Slices of eggplant are salted, coated in egg and breadcrumbs, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Fried Eggplant

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggplant

  1. Sprinkle eggplant slices with coarse sea salt.

  2. Stack the salted slices with a plate and weight on top. Let rest for 1 hour.

  3. Remove the weight and plate.

Coat and fry

  1. In a bowl, mix 1 egg with 1 tablespoon water, ½ tablespoon coarse sea salt, and ½ teaspoon black pepper. Beat the mixture well.

  2. Dip each eggplant slice in the egg mixture.

  3. Coat the dipped slices with dried bread crumbs. Let the coated slices sit for 20 minutes.

  4. Fry the slices in hot oil until 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.

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. Pepper + breadtop 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

Eggplant
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender inside while the coating crisps outside.
Egg
Binds the bread crumbs to the eggplant slices so the coating adheres during frying.
Dried bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned outer crust when fried in hot oil.

The step that matters

Fry the slices in hot oil until brown. Oil that is not hot enough lets the coating absorb grease and turn soggy, while oil that is too hot browns the crumbs before the eggplant cooks through.

Swap the eggplant

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

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

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