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Eels Stewed in Gravy

A stew of eels simmered in beef gravy, sherry, and port, finished with anchovy, flour, butter, lemon, and horseradish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,400 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Eels Stewed in Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eels

  1. Clean and skin the eels, cutting them into 3-inch pieces.

  2. Sprinkle the eels with salt, pounded cloves, mace, and pepper.

Stew

  1. Place the eels in a stewpan with beef gravy, sherry, and port, covering them.

  2. Cover and stew until the eels are tender.

  3. Remove the eels and keep them warm on a hot dish.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Add the chopped anchovy, flour, and butter to the gravy, boiling it.

  2. Strain the gravy.

  3. Add lemon juice to the sauce and pour it over the eels.

  4. Serve hot, garnished with bread sippets and scraped horseradish.

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Lemon + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Anchovy + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sherry + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,237 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
The main protein; stewing turns them tender and gives the dish its body.
Flour
Thickens the gravy into a smooth sauce as it boils with the butter.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the flour thicken the sauce smoothly.
Anchovy
Adds a savory, salty depth to the sauce that blends into the background.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce and balances its fat.

The step that matters

Boiling the flour and butter into the gravy. Flour thickens only when it is cooked in hot liquid; if the sauce is not boiled after the flour is added, it stays thin and can taste raw. Stir well to avoid lumps.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, sherry, anchovy, flour, butter, lemon, clove):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, sherry, anchovy, flour, butter, lemon, clove. 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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