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Egg Plant

Fried slices of eggplant coated in egg, milk, and flour batter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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

  1. Slice the eggplant into ½‑inch thick slices and peel them.

  2. Soak the slices in salt water for 1 hour, placing a plate on top to keep them submerged.

  3. Dry each slice with a towel.

Fry

  1. Dip the slices into a batter made from the beaten egg, milk, flour, pepper, and salt.

  2. Fry the slices in boiling oil until golden 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.

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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 tender, soft interior that contrasts with the crisp coating.
All-purpose flour
Forms the batter that coats the slices and browns into a crisp outer layer.
Beaten egg
Binds the milk and flour into a batter that clings to the slices.
Milk
Thins the batter so it coats the slices evenly.

The step that matters

Drying the slices. Eggplant holds a lot of water after soaking. If slices stay wet, the batter slides off and the hot oil spatters and cools, so the coating steams instead of crisping.

Swap the eggplant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, egg, pepper. 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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