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Conger Eel, Fried

Fried slices of conger eel coated in beaten egg and bread crumbs, served with lemon and sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Conger Eel, Fried

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the conger eel thoroughly and cut it into thick slices.

  2. Brush each slice with the beaten egg and coat with bread crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the slices in hot lard or dripping until browned on both sides and the flesh separates easily from the bone.

  2. Once cooked, place the slices on blotting paper to absorb excess fat.

  3. Transfer to a hot dish, squeeze lemon juice over them, and serve with your choice of 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. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  2. Bread + shrimptop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together360 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  3. Lemon + shrimptop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Bread + lemontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,445 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Egg and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Conger eel
Forms the main body of the dish, with firm flesh that holds together when fried.
Beaten egg
Binds the bread crumbs to the eel so the coating adheres during frying.
Bread crumbs
Forms a crisp, golden coating that browns in the hot fat.
Lard or dripping
Conducts heat for frying, browning the coating and crisping the outside.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, fried flavour.

The step that matters

Frying until the flesh separates from the bone. The fat must be hot enough to brown the coating quickly without overcooking the thick slices. Cooking until the flesh pulls easily from the bone shows the eel is done through, while the crumb coating stays crisp rather than greasy.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, bread, shrimp):

  1. Avocadofits about as well
  2. Pumpkinfits about as well
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, bread, shrimp. 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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