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Conger-eel Stewed, with Curry

A stew of conger eel, onion, butter, flour, curry powder, water, wine, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and white wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,083 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Conger-eel Stewed, with Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the skin from the conger eel and cut it into square pieces.

Build the stew

  1. Mince the onion and fry it in butter in a stew pan until golden.

  2. Add the fish pieces to the onion and toss for a few moments.

  3. Sprinkle the flour and curry powder over the fish and mix well.

  4. Pour in the water and white wine to cover the fish, then add salt, spices, and the parsley.

Simmer and finish

  1. After five minutes, move the pot to the side to simmer gently.

  2. At the end, remove the parsley and thicken the sauce with two egg yolks.

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. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + white winetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,535 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Conger eel
Firm white fish provides the main protein and body of the stew.
Onion
Softens and sweetens as it fries, forming the base flavour of the sauce.
Butter
Carries the frying of the onion and adds richness to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the liquid.
Curry powder
Adds aroma and warm spice flavour to the stew.
White wine
Adds acidity and depth to the liquid that cooks the fish.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce with egg yolks. Egg yolk proteins thicken the sauce as they gently heat and set. If the sauce boils or gets too hot after the yolks go in, they can scramble and turn grainy, so keep the heat low and stir steadily.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, white wine, parsley):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, white wine, parsley. 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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