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Eel Pie

A savory pie made with eels, rump steak, and a forcemeat of eel flesh, anchovy, parsley, lemon peel, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Eel Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eels

  1. Skin the eels.

  2. Cut the eels into 2 or 3-inch lengths.

  3. Season the eels with pepper and salt.

Assemble the pie

  1. Place the eels in a pie dish with bits of butter and a little water.

  2. Place small pieces of rump steak at the bottom of the dish, but do not layer it with the eels.

  3. Cover the eels with pastry.

Make the gravy

  1. Boil the eels.

  2. Cut the fins close.

  3. Pick the flesh off.

  4. Discard the bones.

  5. Add the bones to the boiling liquor with mace, pepper, salt, and sliced onion.

  6. Boil until rich.

  7. Strain.

Make the forcemeat and bake

  1. Make a forcemeat with the eel flesh, an anchovy, parsley, lemon peel, salt, pepper, breadcrumbs, and warmed butter.

  2. Lay the forcemeat at the bottom of the dish.

  3. Add the flesh of soles, small cod, or dressed turbot on top of the forcemeat, seasoned with salt and pepper.

  4. Pour the gravy over the fish.

  5. Bake.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Sauce + turbottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together248 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

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

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

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eels
The main fish, whose flesh and bones supply both the filling and the rich gravy.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb moisture and bind the forcemeat so it holds together in the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the forcemeat and the filling.
Onion
Adds savoury aroma and depth to the stock the bones are boiled in.
Rump steak
Adds meaty, savoury flavour to the juices as the pie bakes.

The step that matters

Boil until rich. Boiling the bones and liquor long enough draws gelatin and flavour out of them, which gives the gravy body. Stopping too early leaves a thin, weak gravy.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, butter, sauce, onion, parsley, lemon, turbot):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, sauce, onion, parsley, lemon, turbot. 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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