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Potted Eels

A preserved dish of eels cured in a pickle of bay leaves, marjoram, thyme, salt, sugar, and porter beer, then fried and stored in pots.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Potted Eels

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eels

  1. Remove skins, heads, tails, and fins from the eels. Open them from head to tail.

  2. Wash the eels in saltwater for 1-2 minutes. Dry with cloths. Dust the eels with flour. Set aside.

Pickle

  1. Prepare a pickle with bay leaves, marjoram, thyme, coarse sea salt, coarse sugar, and porter beer.

  2. Cut the eels into 3-inch pieces. Layer them in a deep dish with the pickle mixture. Cover tightly.

  3. Let the eels sit for 24 hours, or longer if thick.

Fry and pot

  1. Wash the eels again in saltwater. Dry with cloths.

  2. Fry in boiling olive oil until golden brown. Drain. Let cool.

  3. Place a pinch of crushed chilies inside each piece of fish. Pack them into white pots.

  4. Cover the fish with clarified butter. Replenish if absorbed.

  5. Seal the pots with bladder for storage.

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. Marjoram + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Thyme + olivetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,948 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (apple, fatty).

  3. Thyme + beertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together155 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Marjoram + olivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together439 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Beer + olivetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together495 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Eels
Provide the firm, oily flesh that is pickled, fried, and preserved in butter.
Porter beer
Adds malty, slightly bitter flavor to the pickle that penetrates the fish.
Coarse sugar
Balances the salt in the pickle and adds subtle sweetness.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the fish and draws moisture during the pickling step.
Clarified butter
Seals the fish from air, adding richness and helping preserve it in the pots.

The step that matters

Frying in boiling olive oil until golden brown. The fish is floured and dried before frying so the surface browns and crisps rather than steaming. Drying the pieces well matters, because surface water spatters in hot oil and slows browning.

Swap the marjoram

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (thyme, sugar, beer, olive, butter):

  1. Rosemaryfits about as well
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Marjoramthe original
  4. Parsleyfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against thyme, sugar, beer, olive, 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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