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Fried Egg Plant

Fried eggplant slices parboiled, coated in egg and flour, then fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Fried Egg Plant

Why it works: Eggplant and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 371 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fried Egg Plant

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Parboil the eggplant slices in salted water.

  2. Dip the parboiled slices in beaten egg, then coat with flour.

Fry

  1. Heat butter and lard in a pan.

  2. Fry the coated eggplant slices 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 + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together371 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 main body of the dish, becoming tender when parboiled and fried.
Eggs
Bind the flour coating to the eggplant so it adheres during frying.
Flour
Forms a dry coating that crisps and browns in the hot fat.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor and helps the coating brown in the pan.
Lard
Fries at a high temperature, giving the coating a crisp, golden surface.

The step that matters

Frying the coated eggplant until golden brown. The fat must be hot enough before the slices go in, or the flour coating absorbs excess oil and turns greasy instead of crisp. Cooking until golden brown ensures the coating sets and the eggplant is cooked through.

Swap the eggplant

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Eggplantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour, 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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