Skip to main content
Main

Collared Conger Eels

A preserved conger eel pickled, smoked, and coated with gelatin or malt cooms.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Allspice and laurel match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 627 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Collared Conger Eels

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Remove the head, tail, and fins from the fish, and take off the skin, reserving it.

  2. Open the fish along the back and remove the large bone.

Salt and press

  1. Sprinkle coarse sea salt over the inside of the fish.

  2. Add coarse sugar on top of the fish.

  3. Press boards down on both sides of the fish.

  4. Leave the fish pressed overnight.

  5. The next day, remove the boards.

  6. Renew the salt and sugar on the fish.

  7. Dust the fish with ground white pepper.

  8. Add allspice, juniper berries, bay leaves, and laurel leaves to the pickle.

  9. After two more days, rub the fish inside and out with the mixture.

Dry and finish

  1. Wipe the pieces with cloths.

  2. Roll each piece into a collar.

  3. Dry gradually.

  4. Smoke the fish.

  5. Coat the fish with gelatin or bury in malt cooms wrapped in paper.

  6. Use tape for binding instead of string.

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.

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. Allspice + laureltop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together627 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. White pepper + allspicetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together272 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. White pepper + laureltop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together270 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Sugar + allspicetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,938 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Fish + laureltop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together241 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the fish, helping it cure and firm.
Coarse sugar
Balances the salt and adds sweetness to the cure.
Allspice
Adds warm aromatic flavor to the pickle mixture.
Juniper berries
Adds resinous, aromatic flavor to the pickle mixture.
Bay leaves
Adds herbal aroma to the pickle mixture.

The step that matters

Pressing the fish overnight with boards. Even pressure keeps the fish flat and in contact with the salt and sugar, so the cure penetrates evenly and the moisture drawn out is removed rather than pooling and spoiling the texture.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, sugar, allspice, laurel):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, sugar, allspice, laurel. 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

Fried FishFried Fish120 recipesFish CroquettesFish Croquettes81 recipesScalloped CodScalloped Cod69 recipesBroiled FishBroiled Fish68 recipes