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Eels, Stewed

A stew of eels simmered in stock with onion, cloves, lemon peel, wine, cream, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Eels, Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and skin the eels, then cut them into 3‑inch pieces.

  2. Season the eels with salt and pepper, and place them in a stewpan.

Stew

  1. Pour the stock over the eels, add the onion stuck with cloves, lemon peel, and wine.

  2. Simmer gently for about 1 hour, then carefully lift the eels onto a hot serving dish.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Strain the gravy, stir in the cream and enough flour to thicken, and boil for 2 minutes.

  2. Add cayenne and lemon juice, pour the sauce over the eels, and serve hot.

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

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

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  5. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Eels
Provide the main body of the dish, becoming tender during gentle simmering.
Stock
Supplies the liquid base and savoury depth for the stewing and gravy.
Port or madeira wine
Adds acidity and aroma that balance the richness of the gravy.
Cream
Adds fat and smoothness, softening the gravy's flavour and texture.
Flour
Thickens the strained gravy so it coats the eels.

The step that matters

Simmer gently. Rapid boiling toughens and breaks up delicate eel flesh, so a gentle simmer keeps the pieces tender and intact while they cook through.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clove, lemon, madeira wine, cream, flour, pepper):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, lemon, madeira wine, cream, flour, 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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