Why it works: Butter and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Eel Pie
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Cut the eels into 2 to 3-inch lengths and season with salt and pepper.
Place the eels in a pie dish, dot with butter, and add a little water.
For variation, add small pieces of rump steak at the bottom of the dish, but keep the eels separate.
Cover the dish with puff pastry.
Bake
Bake until the pastry is golden and the eels are cooked through.
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.
-
Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together15,338 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
-
Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
-
Pepper + saucetop 27% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together15,303 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eels
- Form the main filling, becoming tender and flavourful as they cook through in the dish.
- Puff pastry
- Forms the covering that bakes into a crisp, golden, flaky crust.
- Butter
- Adds richness and helps the top and filling brown and taste savoury.
The step that matters
Bake until the eels are cooked through. Eels can be undercooked while the pastry browns quickly on top. Check that the fish is opaque and flakes easily at the centre, since the pastry colouring alone does not show that the filling is done.
“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.
You might also like
Tomato Soup526 recipes
Brown Bread461 recipes
Mutton Broth292 recipes
Yorkshire Pudding264 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.