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Fried Eels

Fried eels are marinated in vinegar, lemon, onion, salt, pepper, then coated in flour and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,979 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Fried Eels

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the cleaned eels into short pieces.

  2. Make a pickle with vinegar, lemon juice, sliced onion, salt, and pepper; marinate the eels for 2-3 hours.

Fry and serve

  1. Coat the marinated eels in flour.

  2. Heat lard or clarified butter in a pan and fry the eels until golden brown.

  3. Serve the fried eels dry, with fried parsley and plain or melted butter on the side.

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together957 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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 turns firm and flaky when fried.
Vinegar
Acidity in the pickle that firms the eel flesh and adds a sharp, tangy flavour.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity to the pickle, brightening the flavour of the fish.
Flour
Forms a coating that browns in the hot fat and gives the eels a crisp crust.
Lard or clarified butter
Frying fat that conducts heat evenly and browns the coating to a golden colour.

The step that matters

Frying the floured eels until golden brown. Fat must be hot enough to crisp the flour coating quickly; if it is too cool, the coating absorbs fat and turns greasy while the eel overcooks.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, lemon, pepper, flour, butter, parsley, marjoram):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, lemon, pepper, flour, butter, parsley, 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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