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To Boil Eels

A whole eel stuffed with pudding mixture, boiled, and garnished with crispy parsley and served with anchovy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Anchovy and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

To Boil Eels

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Skin and clean the eel well.

  2. Prepare a pudding mixture as for pike and stuff it into the belly of the eel.

  3. Skewer the eel round and place it in cold water.

Boil and serve

  1. Set it on a low fire and boil for half an hour.

  2. Garnish with crispy parsley and serve with anchovy sauce.

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. Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Anchovy + parsleytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,702 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Sauce + parsleytop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,693 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Eel
Forms the main body of the dish, with firm flesh that holds its shape when simmered gently.
Pudding mixture
Fills the belly, adding bulk and flavour as the eel cooks around it.
Anchovy sauce
Adds a salty, savoury note that contrasts with the mild, rich eel.

The step that matters

Keeping the water at a low simmer. Eel is delicate, and a hard boil can break the skin and toughen the flesh. A gentle heat cooks it evenly while keeping it intact.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (anchovy, sauce):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Garlicfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against anchovy, sauce. 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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