Skip to main content
Main

Eels a LA Tartare

A dish of eels cooked with carrot, onion, flour, sherry, and seasonings, then coated with egg and breadcrumbs and fried, served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Isabella Beeton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Eels a LA Tartare

6 persons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rub butter on the bottom of the stewpan.

  2. Cut up the carrot and onion.

  3. Stir the carrot and onion over the fire for 5 minutes.

  4. Dredge the carrot and onion in a little flour.

Make the sauce and cook the eels

  1. Add the sherry and seasoning to the pan.

  2. Boil the mixture for 1/2 an hour.

  3. Skin and wash the eels.

  4. Cut the eels into pieces.

  5. Add the eels to the other ingredients.

  6. Simmer until tender.

  7. Take the eels out of the pan.

Coat, fry and serve

  1. Let the eels get cold.

  2. Cover the eels with egg and bread crumbs.

  3. Fry the eels to a nice brown.

  4. Put the eels on a dish.

  5. Pour sauce piquante over the eels.

  6. Serve the eels hot.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

193Calories
8 gProtein
6 gFat
20 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 8 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Carrot1 medium (61g)25
Wine2 tbsp cooking wine (30ml)25
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Vinegar1 tbsp (15ml) distilled3
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Isabella Beeton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eels (in the method)
The main ingredient, simmered until tender and then fried for a browned coating.
Egg
Binds the coating so the bread crumbs stick to the eels and brown when fried.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and aroma to the base flavour of the sauce.
Onion
Adds savoury depth and aroma to the base flavour of the sauce.
Sherry
Adds aroma and flavour to the sauce as it cooks with the eels.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich flavour of the sauce.

The step that matters

Let the eels get cold. Cooling firms the cooked flesh so the egg and bread crumb coating stays attached and does not fall off during frying.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, carrot, sherry, egg, pepper, nutmeg):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, carrot, sherry, egg, pepper, nutmeg. 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.

You might also like

Carrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes