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Spitchcock Eels

A dish of eels coated in egg yolk, parsley, pepper, salt, mace, and suet, then broiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Spitchcock Eels

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Leave the skin on the eels for nutrition.

  2. Wet the eels with the beaten egg yolk.

  3. Strew finely chopped parsley, pepper, salt, and mace on both sides.

  4. Rub the griddle with suet.

Cook and serve

  1. Broil the eels until they are a fine light brown.

  2. Serve with anchovy sauce or melted butter.

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. Egg + anchovytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,330 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Parsley + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,702 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Parsley + macetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,268 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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
Main protein; the fish that is cooked and served as the dish.
Egg yolk
Coats the eels so the seasonings cling, and its proteins and fats help the surface brown.
Suet
Greases the griddle so the eels do not stick and tear as they cook.
Mace
Adds a warm, aromatic spice note to the eels.

The step that matters

Broil until fine light brown. Eels are fatty but can dry out under direct heat. Watching the colour closely stops the surface browning, which comes from proteins and sugars reacting, before the flesh overcooks and toughens.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, parsley, pepper, anchovy):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, parsley, pepper, anchovy. 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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