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Conger Eels

A stew of sliced conger eel, onions, dillisk, and spices, thickened with a flour paste.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Conger Eels

Ingredients

Directions

Stew

  1. Combine conger eel, onions, dillisk, salt, pepper, and water in a saucepan or earthen pot.

  2. Stew for one hour.

Thicken and serve

  1. Ten minutes before serving, remove the fish.

  2. Mix flour with a little water to create a paste.

  3. Add the flour paste to the pot.

  4. Boil for ten minutes.

  5. Pour the sauce over the fish and serve.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. 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

Conger eel
The main protein, becoming tender and flaking apart as it stews gently.
Onions
Soften during the long stew, adding sweetness and body to the broth.
Dillisk
This seaweed adds a savory, briny flavor to the broth.
Flour
Its starch swells when heated, thickening the broth into a sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the flour paste. Mixing the flour with a little water first keeps it smooth. Boiling it in the broth for ten minutes lets the starch swell fully, so the sauce thickens without lumps.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Okrafits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, 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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