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Spitchcocked Eels

Eels are seasoned, coated in egg and breadcrumbs, then fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Spitchcocked Eels

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eels

  1. Remove the gills from the eels and cut them into 3‑4‑inch pieces.

  2. Mix parsley, sage, mace, pepper, and salt in a bowl.

  3. Coat the eel pieces with warmed butter and lemon juice for 2‑3 minutes.

  4. Sprinkle the seasoning over the eel pieces.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip each piece in beaten egg and then in bread crumbs.

  2. Fry the coated eel pieces in boiling fat until golden brown, about 20 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve on a plate with sauce piquante or melted butter with lemon juice.

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. Parsley + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

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

  3. Sage + lemontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together887 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eels
The main protein, which cooks through in the hot fat while the coating browns.
Egg
Binds the bread crumbs to the eel pieces so the coating stays on during frying.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns in the hot fat.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the eel pieces before they are coated.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and fried coating.

The step that matters

Frying the coated eel pieces in boiling fat. The fat must be hot enough to brown the crumb coating quickly. If it is too cool, the coating absorbs more fat and turns greasy before the eel is cooked through.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, sage, pepper, butter, lemon, egg, bread):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, sage, pepper, butter, lemon, egg, bread. 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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