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Stewed Eels

A dish of eels fried in a breadcrumb and egg batter, then sautéed with onions, parsley, sage, salt, pepper, and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,445 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Stewed Eels

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eels

  1. Scrape and wash the eels.

  2. Wrap them in a towel until dry.

Make the coating

  1. Make a batter by mixing bread crumbs and eggs.

  2. Fry the eels in the batter for a few minutes.

  3. Let them cool.

Make the stew

  1. Chop the onions, parsley, and sage.

  2. Season with salt and pepper.

  3. Sauté the chopped mixture in a little gravy.

  4. Add the pieces of eel.

  5. Cook until the eels are tender.

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 + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eels
Main protein that becomes tender and flaky during the stewing.
Bread crumbs
Form the batter that coats the eels and helps them brown when fried.
Eggs
Bind the bread crumbs into a batter that clings to the eels.
Small onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they soften in the gravy.
Gravy
Provides liquid and moisture for the stew.

The step that matters

Cook until the eels are tender. Eel needs enough time in liquid for its connective tissue to break down. Stopping early leaves it firm and chewy, so cook until a fork or knife slides through the flesh easily.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, egg, parsley, sage, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, egg, parsley, sage, 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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