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Boiled Eel for Convalescents

A boiled eel cooked with salt, parsley, and hot water, served with some cooking liquid and parsley leaves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Boiled Eel for Convalescents

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Skin the eel and cut off the fins.

  2. Place it on a grill over a bright fire for 10-12 minutes to draw out the oily fat.

  3. Scrape the eel well and wash it in warm water.

Cook and serve

  1. Put the eel into a quart of hot water with salt and parsley.

  2. Simmer gently for 18-20 minutes.

  3. Serve with a little of the cooking water and a few parsley leaves poured over.

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

What each ingredient does

Eel
Provides the main protein and rich, oily flesh that gives the dish its body.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the cooking water so the eel is flavoured through as it simmers.
Parsley
Adds a fresh, herbal aroma to the cooking liquid and the finished serving.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 18-20 minutes. Gentle simmering keeps the water below a rolling boil, so the delicate flesh cooks evenly and stays tender rather than breaking apart or toughening.

“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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