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A Nsuille Rotie. — Roasted Eel

A roasted eel stuffed with a forcemeat of breadcrumbs, bacon, parsley, sage, pepper, salt, mace, and egg yolk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,445 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

A Nsuille Rotie. — Roasted Eel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eel

  1. Skin the eel and lay it open.

  2. Mix bread crumbs, bacon, parsley, sage, pepper, salt, and mace with the egg yolk to make the forcemeat.

  3. Spread the forcemeat on the inner side of the eel.

  4. Roll the eel tightly from the tail, securing it with twine and small skewers.

Roast and serve

  1. Butter the skin and place it over the eel.

  2. Roast the eel over a fire until nearly cooked, then remove the skin.

  3. Brush the eel with egg yolk and sprinkle with fine bread crumbs before serving.

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. Parsley + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  4. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Silver eel
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked whole after being rolled around the filling.
Bread crumbs
Bind the forcemeat and, when sprinkled on top, add a crisp, golden crust.
Fat bacon
Adds fat and moisture to the forcemeat so it stays tender during roasting.
Egg yolk
Binds the forcemeat and, brushed on top, promotes even browning.
Butter
Adds fat to the skin, aiding browning and helping it crisp over the fire.

The step that matters

Roasting until nearly cooked, then removing the skin. Eel is fatty and delicate; overcooking dries the flesh and toughens the forcemeat, while removing the skin at the right moment lets the surface brown and the top be glazed.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, parsley, sage, pepper, egg, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, parsley, sage, pepper, egg, butter. 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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