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Stewed Eels

A stew of eels simmered with onions, shallots, parsley, thyme, bay leaves, mace, black pepper, Jamaica pepper, gravy, port wine, vinegar, anchovies, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Stewed Eels

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the eels into pieces about 4 inches long.

  2. In a pot, combine onions, shallots, parsley, thyme, bay leaves, mace, black pepper, Jamaica pepper, gravy, port wine, vinegar, and anchovies.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil and let it cook for 10 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. Remove the eels from the pot and boil the sauce until reduced to 1 quart.

  2. Strain the sauce and thicken it with flour mixed in a little cold water.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the eels back to the pot and boil until tender.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  3. Shallot + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  5. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eels
Provide the main protein; they become tender as they simmer in the sauce.
Anchovies
Add savoury depth and umami to the sauce as they break down during cooking.
Flour
Thickens the strained sauce so it coats the eels.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and body to the sauce while its alcohol cooks off.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the richness of the gravy and wine.

The step that matters

Boiling the sauce down to 1 quart. Reducing concentrates the flavours and sets the sauce's body. Boiling too hard or too long can over-thicken it or make it bitter, while stopping early leaves it thin and watery.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, shallot, parsley, thyme, pepper, port wine, vinegar):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, shallot, parsley, thyme, pepper, port wine, 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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