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Stewed Eels

A stew of eels simmered with stock, herbs, and spices, finished with a butter‑flour sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Stewed Eels

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eels

  1. Skin and cut the eels into 2‑inch pieces.

  2. Place the eels in a pan with the stock, onion, herbs, mace, parsley, lemon juice, and peppercorns.

  3. Bring to a boil, skim, and simmer for 15 minutes.

  4. Remove the eels and let them drain.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. In another pan, melt the butter and stir in the flour until smooth.

  2. Add the liquid from the fish and boil for 5 minutes.

  3. Strain the sauce over the eels arranged in the center of a dish.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eels
Main protein; poaching in the stock cooks them gently and keeps them moist.
Butter
Fat that enriches the sauce and carries flavour.
Flour
Thickens the butter and stock into a smooth sauce.
White stock
Cooking liquid that flavours the eels and becomes the base of the sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and body to the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer the eels gently after skimming. Boiling hard toughens the delicate flesh and clouds the stock, so the eels should only simmer once the liquid has been brought to a boil and skimmed.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, lemon, pepper, butter, parsley, onion, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, lemon, pepper, butter, parsley, onion, flour. 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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