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Stewed Eels

A stew of eels simmered with onions, shallots, parsley, herbs, gravy, port wine, vinegar, anchovies, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Stewed Eels

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the cleaned eels into pieces about 4 inches long.

Make the sauce

  1. In a pot, combine onions, shallots, parsley, thyme, bay leaves, mace, black pepper, Jamaica pepper, gravy, port wine, vinegar, and bruised anchovies.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil and let it cook for 10 minutes.

  3. Remove the eels from the pot.

  4. Boil the sauce until it reduces to 1 quart.

  5. Strain the sauce and thicken it with flour mixed in a little cold water.

Cook the eels

  1. Return the eels to the pot and boil until tender.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Shallot + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eels
Are the main protein, becoming tender as they simmer in the sauce.
Port wine
Adds depth, sweetness and aroma to the sauce as it reduces.
Vinegar
Brings acidity that balances the rich gravy and port.
Flour
Thickens the strained sauce so it coats the eels.
Anchovies
Contribute savory depth to the sauce as they break down during cooking.

The step that matters

Boil the sauce until it reduces to 1 quart. Reduction concentrates the flavors of the gravy, wine, and vinegar. Boiling too weakly leaves the sauce thin and bland, while over-reducing can make it overly salty and sharp.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, shallot, parsley, thyme, pepper, port wine, vinegar):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, shallot, parsley, thyme, pepper, port wine, 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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