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Eels a LA Tartare

A dish of eels served with a sauce of milk, butter, roux, lemon, vinegar, eggs, capers, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Eels a LA Tartare

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the eels

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Place the eels in the oven for 10 minutes.

  3. Remove the skins and cut the eels into 2-inch pieces.

  4. Lay the pieces in well-seasoned stock and boil gently for 20 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine the milk, butter, and roux; boil for 5 minutes.

  2. Add seasoning, lemon juice, white vinegar, and eggs; whisk until boiling.

  3. Stir in the chopped capers and parsley.

Serve

  1. Gently lift the eel pieces from the stock and place them in the center of a hot dish.

  2. Pour the sauce over the eels and garnish with croutons.

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

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

  2. Capers + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,550 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

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

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

  5. Lemon + caperstop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,222 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Eels
The main protein, gently poached so the flesh stays moist and tender.
Roux
Thickens the milk and butter mixture into a smooth, body-rich sauce.
Eggs
Coagulate when heated, adding body and helping thicken the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce.
White vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that cuts through the richness of the sauce.

The step that matters

Whisking the eggs into the hot sauce. Egg proteins thicken the sauce as they set, but overheating or leaving them still can curdle them into lumps. Whisking constantly while the sauce comes to a boil keeps the eggs evenly distributed and the texture smooth.

Swap the capers

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Capersthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, lemon, vinegar, egg, parsley, pepper. 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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