Skip to main content
Main

Egg Plant

Breaded eggplant slices coated in cracker crumbs and fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
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. Cut the eggplant into slices.

  2. Soak the slices in salted water for 1 hour.

  3. Dry the eggplant slices with a cloth.

  4. Prepare seasoned cracker crumbs with salt and pepper.

  5. Beat the yolks of 2 or 3 eggs in a bowl.

Bread and fry

  1. Dip each slice in the egg, then coat with cracker crumbs.

  2. Fry the coated slices in butter 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. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Eggplant + buttertop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together507 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  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 tender, mild body of the dish once cooked.
Eggs
Bind the cracker crumbs to the slices so the coating holds during frying.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns in the hot butter.
Butter
Conducts heat for frying and adds browning and rich flavour to the coating.

The step that matters

Dry the eggplant slices with a cloth. Surface moisture left after soaking turns to steam in the hot butter and loosens the crumb coating. Thorough drying helps the crumbs adhere and crisp instead of sliding off or going soggy.

Swap the eggplant

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

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

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

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes