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Fricasseed Eels

A stew of eels simmered with butter, flour, parsley, salt, pepper, and optional vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fricasseed Eels

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eels

  1. Skin, clean, and cut the eels into 2‑inch pieces.

Cook and finish

  1. Boil the eels in water until tender.

  2. Add butter, flour or rolled cracker, and chopped parsley to the pot.

  3. Season with salt and pepper, and add vinegar if desired.

  4. Let the mixture simmer for 10 minutes and serve hot.

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

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

  2. Wheat + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Butter + wheattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  5. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eels
Form the main body of the dish once cooked until tender.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the sauce.
Wheat flour or rolled cracker
Thickens the cooking liquid so it clings to the eel pieces.
Vinegar
Adds a sharp acidity that brightens the rich, fatty flavour.

The step that matters

Let the mixture simmer for 10 minutes. Simmering gently lets the flour or cracker fully hydrate and thicken the liquid without scorching or breaking the butter, so the sauce turns smooth rather than pasty or greasy.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, wheat, pepper, vinegar):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Cinnamonfits about as well
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, wheat, pepper, vinegar. 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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