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Eels a LA Tartare

A dish of eels coated in egg and breadcrumb mixture, then fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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

Prepare

  1. Clean the eels and cut them into 4‑inch pieces.

  2. Beat the eggs in a bowl.

  3. Mix bread crumbs with chopped parsley, dried thyme, and cayenne pepper.

Coat and cook

  1. Dip the inside of the eel pieces in the egg.

  2. Coat the eel pieces with the breadcrumb mixture.

  3. Place the eels in a Dutch oven before the fire.

  4. Baste with butter mixed with essence of anchovies while cooking.

  5. Cook until the skin turns golden.

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

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

  3. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eels
Provide the main body of the dish, cooking into tender flesh under a crisp coating.
Eggs
Bind the breadcrumb coating so it adheres to the eel pieces.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust that browns during cooking.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture while basting and helps the skin brown.

The step that matters

Cook until the skin turns golden. Cooking over steady heat until the skin browns gives a crisp crust while keeping the flesh moist, so it should be watched rather than rushed.

Swap the thyme

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

  1. Thymethe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

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