Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Egg Plant
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the eggplant
Pare and slice the eggplant into ½ inch thick slices.
Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and let stand for 1 hour.
Rinse the slices in cold water and pat dry.
Coat and fry
Dip each slice in the beaten egg, then coat with rolled crackers or bread crumbs.
Season with pepper and fry in butter until 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 + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Eggplant + peppertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,123 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Egg + breadtop 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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Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,964 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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, cooking down to a tender interior inside the crust.
- Beaten egg
- Acts as a binder so the crumb coating adheres to each slice.
- Rolled crackers or bread crumbs
- Forms a crisp, browned crust when fried in butter.
- Butter
- Conducts heat for frying and adds fat that promotes browning and flavor.
The step that matters
Salting and drying the slices. Salting draws out moisture and bitterness from the eggplant. Patting the slices dry removes surface water so the egg and crumbs stick and the slices brown rather than steam in the butter.
Swap the eggplant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, bread, pepper, butter):
- Capsicumfits better
- Asparagusfits better
- Chivefits better
- Eggplantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, bread, pepper, butter. 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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