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Eels, Baked

A baked eel stuffed with a forcemeat of breadcrumbs, shrimps, mace, pepper, salt, butter, and egg yolk, served with a gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Eels, Baked

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Prepare a forcemeat by mixing bread crumbs, shrimps, mace, pepper, salt, softened butter, and beaten egg yolk.

  3. Stuff the eel with the forcemeat.

  4. Place the stuffed eel in a round baking dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Add twice as much water as sherry to the dish, along with 2 to 3 ounces of butter.

  2. Bake for 45 minutes.

  3. Skim and strain the gravy before serving.

  4. Pour the gravy over the eel and garnish with lemon slices.

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

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Shrimp + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,931 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  5. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Eel
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked whole and stuffed.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, enriching both the forcemeat and the baking liquid.
Bread crumbs
Bind the forcemeat and absorb moisture so the stuffing holds together.
Egg yolk
Binds the forcemeat, helping it set and hold its shape while baking.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aroma to the cooking liquid that becomes the gravy.

The step that matters

Skim and strain the gravy before serving. The baking liquid picks up fat and fine solids from the eel and stuffing. Skimming removes excess fat and straining removes particles, giving a smoother, cleaner gravy.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, shrimp, pepper, butter, egg, sherry, lemon. 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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