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Stewed Eels

A stew of silver eel simmered with butter, flour, milk or water, parsley, lemon juice, cayenne pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Stewed Eels

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eel

  1. Cut the head off the eel and wash it well.

  2. Cut the eel into pieces about 2 inches long.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a pan over medium heat.

  2. Add the flour and stir to make a roux.

  3. Gradually add the milk or water, stirring until smooth.

Cook and finish

  1. Add the eel pieces and cook until tender.

  2. Stir in the parsley, lemon juice, cayenne pepper, and salt before serving.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Silver eel
Is the main protein, becoming tender as it cooks in the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps start the roux.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth sauce as a roux.
Milk or water
Forms the liquid of the stew, giving the sauce its body and moisture.

The step that matters

Adding the liquid to the roux. Adding the milk or water gradually while stirring keeps the flour mixed in evenly. Adding it all at once can leave lumps, so stirring until smooth gives a silky sauce.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Cinnamonfits about as well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, lemon, 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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