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Pickled Eel

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,523 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Pickled Eel

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Clean the eels thoroughly with water, then soak them in coarse sea salt for 1 hour.

  2. Wipe the eels dry, cut them into pieces, and fry in olive oil until cooked.

  3. Place the fried pieces on blotting paper to cool.

  4. In the remaining oil, add white pepper, mace, bay leaves, sliced lemon, and shallots.

  5. Add enough vinegar and water to cover the eel pieces, then boil the sauce for 15-20 minutes.

  6. Place the eel pieces in jars or stone crocks and pour the cooled sauce over them to cover by ½ inch.

  7. Seal the jars airtight and store in a cool, dry place.

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. Lemon + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,523 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Olive + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Olive + shallottop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,659 recipes

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

  4. White pepper + macetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Olive + vinegartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

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

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (olive, white pepper, lemon, shallot, vinegar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, white pepper, lemon, shallot, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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