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Eels a LA Tartare

A dish of eels prepared as a tartare with eggs, breadcrumbs, herbs, cayenne, butter, and anchovy essence.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

Prepare the eels

  1. Clean the eels and split them down the back, removing the bone.

  2. Cut the eels into pieces about four inches long.

Coat

  1. Beat the eggs and coat the inside of the eel pieces with the beaten eggs.

  2. Mix bread crumbs with chopped parsley, dried thyme, and cayenne pepper, then coat the eel pieces with the breadcrumb mixture.

Cook

  1. Place the eels in a Dutch oven over a fire.

  2. Baste the eels with butter mixed with essence of anchovies while cooking.

  3. Cook until the skin turns up, checking for doneness based on size.

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

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

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

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

  4. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eels
Forms the main body of the dish and carries the flavor of the cooking fat.
Eggs
Bind the breadcrumb coating so it adheres to the eel pieces during cooking.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned coating on the outside of the eel pieces.
Butter
Adds fat for basting, promoting browning and a rich, savory flavor on the skin.

The step that matters

Cook until the skin turns up. Doneness is judged by size and skin behavior rather than a set time, so the cook must watch closely. Heat that is too high can scorch the breadcrumb coating before the flesh is cooked through, while too little heat leaves the coating pale and soggy.

Swap the thyme

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

  1. Thymethe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, bread, parsley, pepper, butter. 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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