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Stewed Eels

A stew of eels simmered with salt pork, onion, flour, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,214 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stewed Eels

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eels

  1. Gut the eels and wash them clean, then wipe them dry.

  2. Sprinkle a little salt and pepper over the eels.

Cook and stew

  1. Fry the salt pork in a pan until nicely browned.

  2. Add the sliced onion to the pan and fry until browned.

  3. Dredge a little flour over the mixture in the pan.

  4. Add the eels to the pan and let them fry for a few minutes.

  5. Pour in 1 cup of hot water, cover, and let them stew for 20 minutes.

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. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Pepper + porktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eels
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender as they stew.
Salt pork
Renders fat and browns in the pan, flavouring the base for the stew.
Onion
Browns in the rendered fat, adding sweetness and savoury depth to the sauce.
Flour
Coats the pan mixture and thickens the cooking liquid as it stews.

The step that matters

Dredging the flour over the pan mixture. Flour must be spread over the fat and onions before liquid is added; if it is skipped or left in clumps, the sauce can turn lumpy and uneven.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, pork, flour):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, pork, flour. 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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