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Fried Eels, with Tartare Sauce

Fried eels coated in flour, egg, and breadcrumbs, then deep‑fried and served with tartare sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Fried Eels, with Tartare Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Skin and clean the eels, then cut them into 3-inch pieces.

  2. Place the eels in a saucepan with cold water, bring to a boil, and boil for 5 minutes.

  3. Strain the eels and wash them in cold water.

  4. Dry the eels thoroughly with a cloth.

Coat and fry

  1. Roll the pieces in flour seasoned with salt and pepper.

  2. Dip the floured pieces into a beaten egg, then coat with bread-crumbs.

  3. Fry the eels in plenty of boiling fat for 6 to 10 minutes, depending on thickness.

  4. Drain well and arrange the eels on a serving dish.

Serve

  1. Garnish with fried parsley and serve with tartare sauce.

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

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

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

  4. Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Eels
Firm white flesh that holds its shape through boiling and frying.
Egg
Binds the flour to the bread-crumbs so the coating adheres during frying.
Bread-crumbs
Form a crisp, browned outer crust when fried.
Flour
Dry base layer that helps the egg and crumbs stick to the eels.

The step that matters

Drying the eels before coating. Any surface water keeps the flour from sticking evenly and turns to steam in the hot fat, which can loosen the coating and make it greasy. Drying thoroughly helps the crumb crust stay attached and crisp.

“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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