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Stewed Eels

Stewed eels simmered in stock with onion, cloves, lemon peel, wine, and seasoned with cayenne, lemon juice, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Stewed Eels

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eels

  1. Wash and skin the eels, then cut them into 3-inch pieces.

  2. Season the eels with salt and pepper, and place them in a stewpan.

Stew

  1. Pour the stock over the eels.

  2. Add the onion with cloves, lemon peel, and wine.

  3. Stew gently for 30-40 minutes.

  4. Transfer the eels to a warm dish.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Strain the gravy.

  2. Mix enough flour with the cream to thicken.

  3. Boil the mixture for 2 minutes.

  4. Add cayenne and lemon juice.

  5. Pour the sauce over the eels 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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Eels
Provide the main protein, whose firm flesh holds its shape through gentle stewing.
Stock
Forms the savoury liquid that cooks the eels and becomes the base of the gravy.
Port or madeira
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the stewing liquid and sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and body to the sauce once thickened with flour.
Flour
Thickens the cream and stock mixture into a smooth, coating sauce.

The step that matters

Boil the thickened mixture for 2 minutes. Flour must be fully boiled to swell its starch and thicken the sauce; without it the gravy stays thin and can taste raw and floury.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clove, lemon, cream, flour, pepper):

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, lemon, cream, flour, pepper. 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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