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Eel Patties

Cooked eel pieces formed into patties served in a thickened broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Eel Patties

Ingredients

Directions

Poach the eel

  1. Place the eel pieces in a stew pan, cover with cold water, and add salt.

  2. Bring the water to a boil, then remove from heat and wash the eels in cold water.

  3. Scrape off any adhering fat and return the eels to the stew pan with enough water to cover them.

  4. Add the mace, bay leaf, whole peppercorns, parsley, and lemon slices.

  5. Stew gently until the fish separates from the bone.

Make the sauce

  1. Remove the fish from the broth, pick it into small pieces, and set aside.

  2. Reduce the broth slightly, strain it, and thicken with flour and butter.

Assemble and serve

  1. Return the fish to the broth, simmer briefly, fill your patty shells, and serve.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mace + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,268 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

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

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eels
Provide the flaky, meaty filling that becomes the main body of the patties.
Flour
Thickens the strained broth into a smooth, cohesive sauce that binds the fish.
Butter
Adds richness and body to the thickened sauce, giving it a silky mouthfeel.
Lemon
Adds gentle acidity and fresh aroma that brightens the poaching broth.

The step that matters

Stew gently until the fish separates from the bone. Boiling vigorously toughens and breaks up the delicate eel flesh, while gentle simmering cooks it evenly so it flakes cleanly off the bone.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, lemon, flour, butter):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, lemon, flour, 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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