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Eels, a LA Tartare

A dish of eels cooked in a vinegar broth, then fried and served with parsley and tartare sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Eels, a LA Tartare

Ingredients

Directions

Poach the eels

  1. Cut the eels into three-inch lengths or leave them whole in a circular form.

  2. In a stewpan, combine sliced carrot, onion, parsley, bay leaf, thyme, peppercorns, and salt, then moisten with ½ cup vinegar and enough water to cover the eels.

  3. Bring to a boil and cook until done.

  4. Let cool partially in the liquid.

  5. Drain and trim the eels.

Fry and serve

  1. Coat the eels with beaten egg and breadcrumbs.

  2. Fry until golden brown.

  3. Serve with fried parsley and tartare sauce in a sauceboat.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eels
Main protein; poaching firms the flesh so it holds its shape through frying.
Eggs
Beaten egg binds the breadcrumb coating so it adheres to the eels during frying.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the coating brown and carrying flavour.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, parsley, thyme, vinegar, egg, butter, 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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