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Fried Egg Plant

Breaded eggplant slices fried in lard and butter after soaking in salt water.

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

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 ↓

Fried Egg Plant

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the eggplant into ½ inch thick slices and soak in salt water for 1–2 hours.

  2. Remove the slices, wipe them dry, and season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  3. Beat the egg yolk in a bowl.

  4. Place the bread crumbs in another dish.

Fry

  1. Heat lard and butter in a frying pan until boiling hot.

  2. Dip each slice in the egg yolk, then coat with bread crumbs on both sides.

  3. Fry the slices until golden brown and cooked through.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Eggplant + peppertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,123 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Eggplant + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together265 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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 tender, moist interior that contrasts with the crisp coating.
Egg yolk
Acts as a binder that helps the bread crumbs stick to the slices.
Bread crumbs
Form a golden, crisp coating that browns when fried.
Lard
Conducts heat for frying and adds richness and browning to the coating.
Butter
Adds flavor and helps the coating brown in the hot frying fat.

The step that matters

Frying in hot fat. The fat must be boiling hot before the slices go in. Hot fat sears the coating quickly, so it turns golden and crisp rather than soaking up oil and turning greasy. Eggplant is also spongy and absorbs fat readily, so a properly hot pan matters.

Swap the eggplant

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

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

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