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Anguilles a LA Poulette

A French dish of eels stewed with mushrooms, butter, wine, and egg yolks, served with croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and white wine match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,704 recipes mention both. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare the eels

  1. Skin and clean the eels, then soak them in vinegar and boiling water to disgorge.

  2. Dry the eels thoroughly and cut them into equal lengths of 3 to 4 inches.

Make the stew

  1. Combine the eels, mushrooms, and butter in a stewpan and begin to fry.

  2. Dredge the mixture in flour.

  3. Stir in the broth and white wine until it boils.

  4. Season with pepper, salt, herbs, and the minced onion.

  5. Let it stew until the eels are tender.

  6. Skim off any floating grease.

  7. Remove from heat.

Finish and serve

  1. Mix lemon juice with the egg yolks, then stir quickly into the stew to prevent curdling.

  2. Serve with croutons and lemon pieces for garnish.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Mushroom + white winetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,704 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  2. Pepper + lemontop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,039 recipes

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

  3. Mushroom + buttertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together12,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Butter + white winetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,039 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. White wine + lemontop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together3,764 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

What each ingredient does

Eels
Provide the main protein, which becomes tender and flaky during slow stewing.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour while the eels and mushrooms begin to fry.
Flour
Coats the eels and thickens the stew liquid into a smooth sauce.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the finished sauce, giving it a silky body.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that balance the richness of the butter and yolks.
Button mushrooms
Contribute earthy flavour and moisture to the stew.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg yolk and lemon mixture into the stew. Egg yolks thicken when heated, but if the stew is too hot or the yolks are added without being stirred quickly, they can scramble and curdle. Tempering the yolks with lemon juice and stirring fast keeps the sauce smooth.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, butter, flour, white wine, pepper, egg, lemon):

  1. Shallotbetter flavor fit
  2. Asparagusbetter flavor fit
  3. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, butter, flour, white wine, pepper, egg, lemon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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