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Broiled Eels with Sage

Broiled eels seasoned with salt, pepper, sage, and served with a butter, vinegar, and water sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Broiled Eels with Sage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eel

  1. Skin, open, and cleanse the eel, then cut it into finger-length pieces.

  2. Rub the pieces with a mixture of salt and white pepper, and let them sit for 30 minutes.

  3. Wipe the eel dry, wrap each piece in sage leaves, and secure with coarse thread.

Broil and serve

  1. Roll the eel in salad oil or clarified butter, then place it on a grill.

  2. Squeeze lemon juice over the eel and broil gently until browned on all sides.

  3. Serve with a sauce made from butter, chili vinegar, water, and a little salt.

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. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  3. White pepper + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,658 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Sage + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,312 recipes

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

  5. White pepper + sagetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together119 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Eel
Forms the main body of the dish, its rich fattiness keeping the flesh moist during broiling.
Sage leaves
Wrapped around each piece to add aroma and flavor as the eel cooks.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and adds richness to the finished dish.
Chili vinegar or tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity to the sauce, cutting through the richness of the butter and eel.

The step that matters

Broiling gently until browned on all sides. Eel is fatty and delicate; high heat can dry the flesh or burn the outside before the centre cooks through. Gentle heat, turned so every side browns evenly, keeps the pieces moist and tender.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sage, butter, lemon, vinegar):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sage, butter, lemon, 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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