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Stewed Eels

A stew of eels simmered in brown gravy with butter, flour, onion, herbs, spices, ketchup, lemon peel, vinegar, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley 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 ↓

Stewed Eels

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eels

  1. Skin and clean the eels, then cut them into pieces about three inches long.

  2. Soak the eel pieces in salted vinegar for a short time.

Make the sauce

  1. In a pot, melt the butter and sauté the chopped onion until soft.

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

  3. Gradually add the brown gravy, stirring until smooth.

Stew and season

  1. Add the eels, herbs, cloves, peppercorns, mace, ketchup, and lemon peel.

  2. Simmer until the eels are cooked through.

  3. Season with vinegar and coarse sea salt to taste.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Parsley + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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 and flaky when simmered through.
Flour
Forms a roux with the butter that thickens the gravy into a smooth sauce.
Brown gravy
Forms the liquid base of the stew, adding savory depth and body.
Butter
Carries the onion's flavor and forms the fat base for the roux.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness as it softens in the butter.

The step that matters

Simmer until the eels are cooked through. Eel is delicate and can turn dry and tough if overcooked, while undercooked fish is unsafe. Gentle simmering cooks the flesh evenly without breaking it apart.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, onion, thyme, parsley, clove, ketchup):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, onion, thyme, parsley, clove, ketchup. 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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