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Eel Sauce

A savory eel sauce made by simmering eel with bacon, ham, veal, onions, root vegetables, wine, broth, herbs, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and chervil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 824 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Eel Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the eels into large pieces.

  2. Place the eels in a stewpan with bacon, ham, veal, onions, and root vegetables.

  3. Soak until it catches.

Simmer and strain

  1. Add white wine, broth, cullis, tarragon, chervil, garlic, spices, and bay leaf.

  2. Simmer for 1 hour.

  3. Skim well and strain through a sieve for use.

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. Tarragon + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together824 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Tarragon + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together548 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Chervil + garlictop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together271 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Chervil + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together199 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Eels
Give the sauce its main fish flavour as they simmer in the stock.
Veal
Adds meaty body and savoury depth to the sauce during the long simmer.
Bacon
Contributes salty, smoky savour that flavours the liquid as it cooks.
Onions
Add aromatic sweetness and background flavour as they cook down.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the rich, savoury liquid.
Broth
Forms the liquid base that carries and blends all the flavours.

The step that matters

Skim well. Skimming removes fat and fine impurities that rise during simmering. Removing them keeps the sauce clear and stops it tasting greasy or muddy.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, veal, onion, white wine, tarragon, chervil, garlic):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, veal, onion, white wine, tarragon, chervil, garlic. 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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