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Stewed Eels

Stewed eels are fried, then simmered in a sauce of beef gravy, sherry, lemon, anchovy, and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Stewed Eels

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eels

  1. Buy live eels if possible, skin and clean them, cut off heads and tails, and reserve the heads and tails for the sauce.

  2. Cut the eels into 3‑inch pieces, roll them in flour, salt, and pepper, and fry in plenty of fat until cooked.

  3. Drain excess fat from the cooked eels and set aside.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. In a saucepan, combine beef gravy, reserved heads and tails, sherry, lemon juice, essence of anchovy, cayenne, and a little flour for thickening.

  2. Simmer gently until hot, then serve the eels with the gravy poured over 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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Beef + anchovytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together451 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Lemon + anchovytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,080 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Pepper + anchovytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,232 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

Eels
Provide the main protein, whose firm flesh holds its shape through frying and stewing.
Flour
Coats the eels to help them brown when fried and thickens the gravy.
Beef gravy
Forms the savoury base of the sauce and carries the other flavours.
Sherry
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the gravy.
Essence of anchovy
Adds concentrated savoury, salty depth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer gently until hot. Boiling vigorously can break up the flour-thickened gravy and toughen the eel, so keep the heat low and steady.

“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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