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Anguille Rotie. — Roasted Eel

A roasted eel coated with breadcrumbs, bacon, parsley, sage, pepper, salt, mace, and egg yolk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,445 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Anguille Rotie. — Roasted Eel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eel

  1. Skin the eel and lay it flat.

  2. Mix bread crumbs, bacon, parsley, sage, pepper, salt, and mace with the egg yolk.

  3. Spread the mixture on the inner side of the eel.

  4. Roll the eel tightly from the tail, securing it with twine and skewers.

Cook and finish

  1. Butter the skin and place it over the roll.

  2. Cook over a fire until nearly done, then remove the skin.

  3. Brush the eel with egg yolk and sprinkle with fine bread crumbs.

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 + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 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. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + macetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,268 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Eel
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked whole as a rolled piece.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and bind the stuffing, giving it body and a crisp coating.
Bacon
Adds fat that keeps the stuffing moist and flavourful during cooking.
Egg yolk
Binds the stuffing together and helps the outside brown when brushed on.
Parsley
Contributes fresh, herbal aroma to the stuffing.

The step that matters

Cook over a fire until nearly done, then remove the skin. A tightly rolled eel cooks unevenly if heat is too strong, so the outside can burn before the stuffing and centre are cooked. Cooking gently until nearly done and then removing the skin lets the surface brown evenly while the interior sets.

Swap the mace

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

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

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