Skip to main content
Main

Eel Pie

A pastry crust filled with eels and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Eel Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Skim and trim the eels, removing heads, tails, and fins.

  2. Stew the trimmings in white broth to make gravy.

  3. Cut the eels into 3‑inch pieces and season with salt and pepper.

Assemble and bake

  1. Add 1 cup of the gravy to the eels and cover with the pastry.

  2. Bake for 1 hour at 350°F (175°C).

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

What each ingredient does

Eels
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender and flavorful during the long, moist cooking.
White broth
Forms the gravy that keeps the filling moist and adds savory body.
Light pastry
Forms a covering that seals in steam and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Covering the eels with pastry. The pastry must seal the dish so steam and gravy stay inside, keeping the eels moist while the crust bakes and browns.

“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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes