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Stewed Eels

A stew of eels simmered with onion, herbs, peppers, mace, stock, and port wine, finished with mushroom ketchup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Stewed Eels

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook the base

  1. Chop the onion.

  2. Fry the onion until brown with the herbs and flour in the butter.

  3. Stir in the peppers, mace, salt, and stock.

Stew the eel

  1. Cut the eel into pieces and add it to the pot.

  2. Let it stew slowly for about 30 minutes.

  3. Remove the fish with a slotted spoon.

  4. Keep it warm in the oven.

Finish the sauce and serve

  1. Add the ketchup and port wine to the sauce.

  2. Let it boil quickly.

  3. Strain it over the eel 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. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  2. Mushroom + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

  3. Port wine + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together570 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eels
Provide the main protein, which becomes tender as they stew slowly in the liquid.
Butter
Carries the frying of the onion and herbs, adding fat and richness to the base.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the butter and onion.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the finished sauce.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds savoury, umami depth to the sauce.
Stock
Forms the liquid in which the eel stews and the sauce is built.

The step that matters

Let it stew slowly for about 30 minutes. Gentle, slow heat keeps the eel tender and intact; a fast boil can toughen the flesh and break the pieces apart.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (port wine, mushroom, ketchup, onion, pepper, butter, flour):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against port wine, mushroom, ketchup, onion, pepper, butter, 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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