If you like stuff really crispy, skip the normal bread crumbs and go with Japanese panko-style bread crumbs. I’ve used them for cutlets, veggies, cheese, poppers, etc. Works great, and they don’t get all mushy afterwards.
The salt the eggplant routine is about 20 years out of date. Only eggplants that are too old to bother eating have any bitter taste nowadays. The only reason to salt it is to reduce the fluid content if you want it to hold its shape. And if you are going to fry it the salting collapses the cells so that they absorb less oil. But if the eggplants you are eating are so old as to be bitter, no amount of salting will make any difference.
Also not what you are looking for, but I “cheat” with zucchini – not sure whether this will work with eggplant. What I do is cut the zucchini into thin-ish slices and lightly salt. Meanwhile, I heat olive oil (about 1 Tbsp.) in a sauté pan. Add zucchini slices and a little bit of chopped or minced garlic, and cook until zucchini is softened and garlic is golden brown. Then I add about 1 Tbsp. of butter to the pan, with seasoned bread crumbs (I use a mixture of Italian seasoned store-bought crumbs and a little bit of panko thrown in, for crunch) and a little bit of Parmesan cheese. Cook, stirring often, until bread crumbs are toasted and they stick to the zucchini. Serve. Enjoy.
I call this “gratin” but I’m pretty sure it isn’t – in any case, you get the flavors and textures of breaded fried zucchini and about 1/3 of the work. Don’t have to mess with eggs, a slotted spoon, etc. This makes a nice side dish with any kind of grilled meat but especially with Italian marinated pork or chicken.
And sliced zucchini and/or eggplant, marinated in Italian dressing or a nice vinaigrette and then cooked on the grill, is also quite delicious.
I’m probably going on old information learned in a cooking class, as I don’t like eggplant and haven’t fooled with it enough to find out about salting vs non. I’ll just shut up now and slink off.
No, slinking not allowed. It’s just one of those things passed on from cook to learner that has been outdated by plant genetics. Once you know about it, you know about it.
For instance remember pork must be well done from our youth. Ha!
True dat. As I recall, I learned about eggplant from a Cajun cook in New Orleans back in the 90s. She probably learned it from her mom an’ 'em. Personally, I don’t eat purple food as a matter of policy.
I just wanted to say three words: deep fried pickles
Deep.
Fried.
Mother****ing.
Pickles.
Simple recipe - take good kosher spears, lightly dust in flour, dip in your best beer batter (tempura will do).
Fry until dark golden brown.
Eat with ranch, blue cheese, or unadorned.
Yummmmm.
Oh, and we dredge our green tomato slices in egg, then in a flour/fine cornmeal mixture. Not as yummy as the deep fried pickles tho.
This is going to sound like a stupid question, but… if you’re going to do tempura, do you have to have a deep fryer or a pot full of oil? Can you dip the veggies in the tempura and fry them in a big frying pan with oil? What kind of oil would you use? I got a big zucchini from the farm stand and want to do something yummy with it, and tempura qualifies, if I can manage to do it right.
I’ll see your hardboiled egg and raise it to new heights of fatty decadence courtesy of the Scots:
Scotch Egg: Hard boiled egg wrapped in sausage and deep fried.
The Weiner and Still Champion in Evanston does deep fried pickles but they are very thin smooth cut slices like potato chips - yum.
They also do chicken fried bacon served with sausage gravy - it’s just as wonderful and horrifying as you can imagine.
I’ve also had a Luther Burger there: a cheddar burger served not on a bun but between two Krispy Kreme doughnuts.
I have no idea why I am having such a hard time losing weight;)
You don’t need a deep fryer. A wok or a deep frying pan will work. I’d use peanut oil, but canola will work.
Wow, I’m still wondering how a hard boiled egg gets deep fried, and now you can wrap sausage around it? How does that work?
Those fried pickle slices kinda sound good. Are they battered, or just fried crispy as is?
I’ll pass on the Krispy Kreme cheddar burger. 
Take one hard-boiled egg. Peel. Mold a mess of bulk sausage around the egg about 3/8" thick or so. Roll in bread crumbs and deep-fry until golden. Serve with English mustard. Eat two of these, smoke a pack of cigarettes and you can cash in your life insurance tomorrow.
The local BBQ joint dips the pickle slices in a thin wash, then flour before frying.
This is ideal for green tomatoes, but I’ve used it on eggplant and zucchini with success, too:
Slice veggies into ~1/3” slices (brine soak the eggplant, as mentioned before). Coat slices with flour (helps the batter stick to the veggies). Dip in a buttermilk and egg batter. Dredge through a corn meal and panko mixture. Fry in a mixture of bacon grease and your oil of choice to a level not quiet topping the veggies. Fry and flip once till golden brown on both sides. Salt and pepper while resting on a metal grate (better than placing on a paper towel to get rid of excess oil). Let stand 5 minutes before serving. Sprinkle with a Chipotle sauce (or Newman’s Own Southwest Salad Dressing) and feta cheese crumbs. It don’t get better than that!
You know, I just can’t get this out of my head. I really do think I’m going to try this. Marlboro Reds or Camel straights?
Okay, “thin wash.” What’s that?
Think “This is good. But if I melted some cheddar cheese on top, it would be better.”