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To Stew Eels

A stew of eels simmered with port wine, beef gravy, aromatics, and finished with anchovy sauce and ketchup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Stew Eels

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stew

  1. In a stewpan, combine the eels, port wine, beef gravy, onion, mace, bay leaves, allspice, cloves, lemon, parsley, thyme, pepper, and salt.

  2. Simmer gently over low heat until the eels are cooked through.

Finish and serve

  1. Strain the sauce and thicken it with flour and butter.

  2. Stir in anchovy sauce and ketchup to taste before serving.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  5. Mace + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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, becoming tender and flaky as they cook gently in the liquid.
Port wine
Adds depth, sweetness and acidity to the sauce as it reduces in the stewpan.
Beef gravy
Forms the savoury liquid base that carries the flavour of the whole dish.
Flour and butter
Together form a roux that thickens the strained sauce to a smooth, coating consistency.

The step that matters

Simmer gently over low heat. Boiling or high heat can toughen and break apart delicate eel flesh and make the sauce cloudy. Gentle simmering cooks the eels through while keeping them intact and tender.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (port wine, beef, onion, allspice, corn, clove, lemon):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against port wine, beef, onion, allspice, corn, clove, lemon. 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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