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Broiled Eels with Sage

Broiled eels wrapped in sage leaves, seasoned with salt, pepper, and vinegar, then grilled and served with a butter 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 eel pieces with a mixture of salt and white pepper, then let them sit for 30 minutes.

  3. Wipe the eel dry.

Wrap and broil

  1. Wrap each piece in sage leaves and secure the wrapped eel with coarse thread.

  2. Roll the wrapped eel in salad oil or clarified butter.

  3. Place the eel on a grill and squeeze lemon juice over it.

  4. Broil gently until browned all over.

Serve

  1. Serve with a sauce made from butter, chili vinegar, water, and a little coarse sea 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
Provides the rich, firm flesh that becomes tender and browned under gentle heat.
Sage leaves
Wrap the eel and add a savoury, aromatic flavour as the leaves warm.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour in the sauce, and fat helps the eel brown.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich flavour of the eel.

The step that matters

Broil gently until browned all over. Eel is fatty and delicate; high heat can dry the flesh or scorch the outside before the centre cooks. Gentle heat with an oiled coating lets the fat render and the surface brown evenly.

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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