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Collared Eels

Collared eels are eels cooked with herbs, onion, carrot, vinegar, then set in gelatin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Collared Eels

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eels

  1. Clean the eels and cut them into 2-inch pieces.

  2. In a pot, combine the eels with cold water, salt, peppercorns, onion, carrot, and vinegar.

  3. Bring to a boil, skim off any foam, and boil steadily for 1 hour or longer if the eels are large.

Make the jelly

  1. Remove the eels, slip out the bones, and cut the meat into small pieces.

  2. Return the bones to the pot and boil the liquid uncovered for 30 minutes, then strain.

  3. Dissolve the gelatine in a little cold water and stir it into the strained liquid.

Set and serve

  1. Rinse a mold with cold water, arrange the eel pieces and sliced hard-boiled egg in it, and add a few sprigs of parsley.

  2. Pour the gelatine mixture over the eel and refrigerate until set.

  3. Turn out the mold and serve with a salad.

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. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eels
Provide the main meat, which is set whole in the jelly.
Gelatine
Sets the strained cooking liquid into a firm jelly around the eel.
Egg
Adds a firm, pale contrast to the soft eel inside the jelly.

The step that matters

Dissolving and stirring in the gelatine. Gelatine must dissolve completely in the liquid, or it sets unevenly and leaves lumps or soft patches. Stirring it into liquid that is warm, not hot, helps it blend and set evenly around the eel.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, onion, vinegar, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, onion, vinegar, pepper. 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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