Skip to main content
Main

Eels a LA Tartare

A dish of boiled eels rolled in egg and breadcrumbs, fried, and served with tartare sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Eels a LA Tartare

Ingredients

Directions

Poach the eels

  1. Place the eels in a stewpan with carrot, onion, parsley, bay leaf, thyme, peppercorns, and salt.

  2. Add vinegar and a little water to moisten, then bring to a boil.

  3. Once cooked, set aside to cool in the liquid.

Coat and fry

  1. Drain the eels, trim them, and roll in beaten egg and bread crumbs.

  2. Fry until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Garnish with fried parsley and serve with tartare 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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  5. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Eels
Provide the main flesh, which firms and holds together when gently poached and then fried.
Egg
Binds the bread crumbs to the eel so the coating adheres during frying.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns in the hot oil.
Vinegar
Adds acidity to the poaching liquid, sharpening the flavour of the fish.

The step that matters

Coat and fry until golden brown. The beaten egg must fully coat the eels so the bread crumbs stick. Frying in hot oil until golden browns the crumbs and seals the coating, so the fish stays moist inside while the outside turns crisp.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, parsley, thyme, vinegar, egg, bread, sauce):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, parsley, thyme, vinegar, egg, bread, 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipes