На ужин мы жарили кабачок и баклажан на сковороде.

На ужин is the normal Russian way to say for dinner or as dinner.

Russian often uses на + accusative for meals:

• на завтрак — for breakfast
• на обед — for lunch
• на ужин — for dinner

So На ужин мы жарили... means something like For dinner, we fried...

Жарили is the past tense plural form of жарить.

It matches мы:

• я жарил / жарила — I fried
• мы жарили — we fried

In the past tense, Russian verbs agree with the subject:

• singular: gender matters
• plural: gender does not matter

So with мы, the correct form is жарили.

Жарили is imperfective, while пожарили is perfective.

Here, the imperfective is natural because it simply states what they were cooking for dinner, without strongly emphasizing the completed result.

Very roughly:

• жарили — were frying / fried
• пожарили — fried up / cooked completely

In many contexts, both are possible, but the nuance changes:

• На ужин мы жарили... focuses on the activity/process
• На ужин мы пожарили... sounds more like we cooked up / finished frying

It can mean either, depending on context.

Russian imperfective past often covers several English ideas:

• fried
• were frying
• sometimes even used to fry

In this sentence, the most natural English translation is usually just fried, but the Russian form still keeps that imperfective sense of describing the activity rather than highlighting completion.

Russian often uses the singular name of a food item when talking about an ingredient or type of food.

So кабачок и баклажан can mean something like:

• zucchini and eggplant
• some zucchini and eggplant
• zucchini and eggplant as ingredients

English sometimes does something similar, especially with food words.

If the speaker wanted to stress multiple actual vegetables, the plural could also be possible:

• кабачки и баклажаны

But the singular here is perfectly natural.

They are in the accusative case because they are direct objects of жарили.

But for masculine inanimate singular nouns, the accusative looks exactly like the nominative.

So:

• кабачок — nominative
• кабачок — accusative
• баклажан — nominative
• баклажан — accusative

That is why there is no visible change.

Сковороде is in the prepositional case.

Here на means location: on the frying pan / in the pan in the practical cooking sense. With на meaning location, Russian uses the prepositional case:

• сковорода → на сковороде

This is just the normal Russian expression:

• жарить на сковороде — to fry in a frying pan

Russian says на сковороде, not usually в сковороде, for this situation.

Because на can govern different cases and mean different things.

In this sentence:

• на ужин = for dinner → на + accusative
• на сковороде = in/on the frying pan → на + prepositional

So even though the preposition is the same, the function is different:

• purpose/occasion: на ужин
• location: на сковороде

This is very common in Russian.

Yes. Russian often drops subject pronouns when they are clear from the verb form.

So Жарили кабачок и баклажан на сковороде can still mean We fried zucchini and eggplant in a frying pan if the context already makes the subject clear.

Including мы can make the sentence a little more explicit, or slightly more contrastive:

• мы did it

Russian word order is flexible, and this order puts На ужин first as the setting or topic.

It feels like:

• As for dinner, we fried zucchini and eggplant in a frying pan.

Other orders are possible:

• Мы жарили кабачок и баклажан на сковороде на ужин.
• Кабачок и баклажан мы жарили на сковороде на ужин.

The basic meaning stays the same, but the emphasis changes. Starting with На ужин makes the meal context come first.

Sometimes, but the meaning is a little different.

• на ужин = for dinner, as the food that was eaten at dinner
• к ужину = for dinnertime / by dinner / for the dinner occasion

So:

• На ужин мы жарили кабачок и баклажан = zucchini and eggplant were the dinner food
• К ужину мы жарили кабачок и баклажан can sound more like we were preparing them for dinner

They are close, but на ужин is the more direct choice here.

Russian has no articles.

So nouns like кабачок, баклажан, and сковороде do not automatically show whether English should use:

• a
• the
• no article at all

That information comes from context.

So depending on context, English might say:

• we fried zucchini and eggplant in a frying pan
• we fried the zucchini and the eggplant in the frying pan
• we fried a zucchini and an eggplant in a frying pan

Russian leaves that to context instead of marking it with articles.