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To Stew Eels

A stew of eels cooked with butter, sorrel, sage, onion, lemon peel, anchovy, nutmeg, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 887 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

To Stew Eels

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the eels into pieces and season with salt and black pepper.

Stew

  1. In a stew pan, melt the butter and add sorrel, sage, onion, and lemon peel.

  2. Add the eels and pour in the water.

  3. Stew gently for 30 minutes, shaking occasionally.

Finish and serve

  1. Before serving, add grated nutmeg and lemon juice.

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. Sage + lemontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together887 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Sage + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together642 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  5. Sorrel + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together89 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Eels
Are the main protein, becoming tender and flaky as they stew gently in liquid.
Sorrel
Breaks down into the stew, adding a sharp, lemony acidity to the broth.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying the herbs' aroma into the stew.
Anchovy
Contributes savory depth, rounding out the flavor of the broth.

The step that matters

Stew gently for 30 minutes. Boiling rather than gently simmering can toughen the eel flesh and make it fall apart. Keeping the heat low lets the fish cook evenly and stay tender.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, butter, sorrel, sage, lemon, anchovy, nutmeg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, sorrel, sage, lemon, anchovy, nutmeg. 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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