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To Collar Eels

A boiled eel seasoned with spices, wrapped in cloth, served with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Collar Eels

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eel

  1. Scour the eel well with coarse sea salt and wipe it clean.

  2. Cut the eel down the back and remove the bone, head, and tail.

  3. Spread the egg yolk over the eel.

  4. Mix cloves, mace, nutmeg, pepper, salt, parsley, and sweet herbs; sprinkle over the eel.

  5. Roll the eel tightly and tie it in a cloth.

Poach the eel

  1. In a pot, add enough water to boil the eel, along with the onion, cloves, mace, and bay leaves.

  2. Boil the mixture with the bones, head, and tail for half an hour, adding a little vinegar and salt.

  3. Remove the bones and add the eel; boil for two hours if large, less if smaller.

Finish and serve

  1. Once done, cool the eel, then remove it from the cloth and liquor, and slice or serve whole with raw parsley.

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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  4. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Eel
Is the main body of the dish, poached whole in a rolled shape that sets into a firm collar.
Egg yolk
Is spread over the eel to help bind the spiced filling as it rolls and cooks.
Nutmeg
Adds warm, aromatic flavour to the spice mixture rolled inside the eel.
Mace
Adds a warm, aromatic flavour to the spice filling and the poaching liquor.
Bay leaves
Add a subtle herbal aroma to the poaching liquor.
Vinegar
Adds acidity to the poaching liquor, sharpening the flavour of the eel.

The step that matters

Rolling and tying the eel tightly. A tight, even roll keeps the spiced filling in place and gives the eel an even shape and texture as it cooks. Loose rolling lets the filling escape and the slices fall apart.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, clove, mace, nutmeg, pepper, parsley, vinegar):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, clove, mace, nutmeg, pepper, parsley, vinegar. 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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