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Stewed Eels

A stew of eels simmered with butter, onion, claret, stock, garlic, carrot, herbs, lime rind, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Stewed Eels

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Skin and clean the eels, then cut them into 2‑inch fillets.

Make the gravy

  1. In a stew‑pan, melt the butter and sauté the sliced onion for 5 minutes.

  2. Add the claret, stock, garlic, carrot, and sweet herbs; boil for 10 minutes while stirring.

  3. Stir in the salt, spiced pepper, lime rind, and add the eel pieces.

  4. Simmer for 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Arrange the eel on a hot dish, strain the gravy, thicken it, and reheat to almost boiling.

  2. Add a pinch of sugar and chopped parsley, then pour the gravy around the fish.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Pepper + limetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,491 recipes

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

  4. Lime + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together547 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eels
The main protein; they become tender and flaky as they simmer slowly in the gravy.
Butter
Adds richness and carries the flavour of the sautéed onion into the gravy.
Claret
Adds acidity and wine flavour, which helps build the body of the stewing liquid.
Stock
Provides savoury body and moisture to form the gravy.
Bombay onion
Adds sweetness and savoury depth when softened in butter before the liquid is added.

The step that matters

Simmer for 30 minutes. Eels are delicate and can break apart or turn tough if the heat is too high. A gentle simmer cooks the fish through while keeping the pieces intact and tender.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, onion, garlic, carrot, pepper, lime, parsley):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Cuminfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, garlic, carrot, pepper, lime, parsley. 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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