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Collared Eels

Pickled eels seasoned with sage, parsley, spices, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 507 recipes. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Collared Eels

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eels

  1. Select the finest eels and do not remove the skin; carefully extract the bone.

  2. Spread out the eels and rub them with chopped sage, parsley, and mixed spices.

  3. Bind the eels tightly with broad white tape.

Cook and pickle

  1. Add a handful of coarse sea salt and bay leaves to boiling water and cook the eels for 45 minutes.

  2. Hang the cooked eels to dry for 12 hours.

  3. In the boiling water used for the eels, add vinegar, whole pepper, and marjoram or thyme, and boil for 12 minutes.

  4. Let the pickle stand for as long as the eels are hung.

  5. Unroll the eels carefully to minimize skin abrasion and place them in the pickle.

Serve

  1. Serve in slices or whole, garnished with parsley.

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. Sage + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together507 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Sage + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Pepper + marjoramtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Eels
Firm, oily flesh that holds its shape through long cooking and pickling.
Vinegar
Acidity that preserves the eels and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Sage
Adds a savoury, aromatic herbal flavour to the eels.
Bay leaves
Contribute a subtle aromatic flavour to the cooking water.

The step that matters

Unroll the eels carefully after hanging. Cooked eel skin is delicate and tears easily when handled, so unrolling gently keeps the skin intact. Intact skin helps the eels hold their shape and keeps the pickle from breaking down the exposed flesh.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sage, vinegar, pepper, marjoram):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Rosemaryfits better
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sage, vinegar, pepper, marjoram. 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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