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Stewed Eels

Stewed eels seasoned with parsley, cayenne pepper, and butter, served with a sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Stewed Eels

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eels

  1. Remove the heads from the eels, clean them thoroughly inside, and skin them starting from the head.

  2. Cut the eels into 1-inch pieces, wash them in cold water, and place them in a stewpan with ½ pint of cold water.

  3. Bring the stewpan to a boil, skim it well, and then reduce the heat to simmer for 10 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. In a bowl, mix 1 oz of flour with about 2 tablespoons of water to form a smooth paste.

  2. Chop the parsley finely until you have about 1 teaspoon.

  3. After simmering, stir in the flour paste, season with cayenne pepper and salt, and cook for 5 minutes, stirring well.

  4. Add 1 oz of butter and the chopped parsley, stirring until combined.

Serve

  1. Serve the eels arranged in a circle on a hot dish, pouring the sauce around them.

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

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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, which becomes tender and flaky when gently simmered.
Flour
Forms a smooth paste that thickens the cooking liquid into a sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the flour paste. Stirring the flour paste into the liquid and cooking it for several minutes helps starch granules swell and thicken the sauce evenly. Adding it as lumps or skipping the stirring can leave the sauce floury and uneven.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, pepper):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Turmericfits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Sagefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, pepper. 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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