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Eel Pie with Tench

A savory pie made with eels, tench, onions, mace, anchovies, herbs, and puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Eel Pie with Tench

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a rather quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the fish

  1. Skin and bone the eels, then clean and bone the tench.

  2. Cut the eels into 2-inch pieces and leave the tench whole.

Make the liquid

  1. Put the bones and trimmings in water and stew for 1 hour.

  2. Strain the liquid, remove the fat, and boil with onions, mace, anchovies, pepper, salt, and herbs.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer the eels, tench, hard-boiled eggs, and parsley in a dish.

  2. Pour in enough of the prepared liquid to cover the fish.

  3. Cover with puff pastry and bake at 400 °F (200 °C) for about 35 minutes.

  4. Add more liquid after baking if desired.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Mace + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,268 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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

Eels
Firm, rich fish that forms the main body of the pie filling.
Tench
Mild white fish that adds flakiness and bulk to the filling.
Anchovies
Dissolve into the liquid, adding savoury depth without a clearly fishy taste.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add a firm, creamy texture and mild richness to the layers.
Puff pastry
Bakes into flaky, crisp layers that seal and brown the top of the pie.

The step that matters

Cover the fish with the liquid before baking. Fish dries and toughens in the oven if exposed. Enough liquid keeps the fish moist and gives the filling its sauce while the pastry bakes.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, pepper, egg, parsley):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, pepper, egg, parsley. 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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