The recipe
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the eel
Kill the eel and grill it on hot cinders until the skin is completely charred.
Wipe and scrape the eel, then cut off the fins, head, and tail.
Gut the eel by opening the throat and a little at the navel, then push the entrails out with a larder.
Wash the eel and turn it around, then fix it with skewers and tie it up.
Cook and serve
Place it in a stewpan and cover with mirepoix; let it cook until half done.
Drain, place it on a spit, and season with black pepper; cook until done.
Remove from heat, let it dry, and serve with an Italian ravigote sauce.
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
What each ingredient does
- Eel
- Forms the main body of the dish, and its firm flesh holds together through grilling and cooking.
- Mirepoix
- Aromatic vegetables that flavour the eel as it cooks partway in the stewpan.
- Coarse sea salt
- Seasons the eel and draws out surface moisture, helping the skin crisp.
The step that matters
Cooking until half done in the stewpan. Cooking only partway lets the eel finish later on the spit without drying out. Cooking too long at the first stage leaves the flesh soft and overcooked before it is finished.
“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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