Why it works: Bread and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Fried Egg Plant
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Cut the eggplant into half‑inch slices and pare them.
Soak the slices in a mixture of ½ cup coarse sea salt and 1 quart of water for 2 to 3 hours, keeping them submerged with saucers.
Dry the slices between towels.
Bread and fry
Dip each slice in bread crumbs, then in beaten egg, and again in bread crumbs.
Fry in a little hot cooking oil 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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Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Eggplant + breadtop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together265 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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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, moist interior that is the body of the dish.
- Egg
- Binds the bread crumbs to the slices so the coating holds during frying.
- Bread crumbs
- Form a crisp, golden coating that browns in the hot fat.
- Cottolene
- Conducts heat to the coating, driving browning and crispness during frying.
The step that matters
Drying the slices between towels. Eggplant holds a lot of water, and surface moisture left after soaking will steam the coating and make it soggy and greasy instead of crisp when it hits the hot fat.
Swap the eggplant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, egg):
- Asparagusfits better
- Leekfits better
- Shallotfits better
- Eggplantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, 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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