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Stuffed Conger Eel

A stuffed conger eel baked with a veal‑seasoned filling and served with a caramelized butter sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Stuffed Conger Eel

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a cool oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the eel

  1. Prepare the veal seasoning as per another recipe.

  2. Sew the seasoning into the eel.

  3. Place the eel in a deep dish and cover it with water.

  4. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for about one hour.

  5. Remove the eel and keep it warm.

  6. Strain the cooking liquid.

  7. Measure out 1 pint of the strained liquid and set aside.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter.

  2. Whisk in the flour to make a roux.

  3. Add the reserved cooking liquid to the roux, stirring until smooth.

  4. Add caramel.

  5. Bring the sauce to a boil.

  6. Season with salt, pepper, and lemon juice.

Serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the eel and serve hot.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Veal + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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
Forms the main body of the dish and provides the flesh that is baked and served.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a sauce when cooked with butter as a roux.
Butter
Melts with the flour to form the roux that gives the sauce body and richness.
Veal seasoning
Stuffed into the eel, flavouring the fish from within as it bakes.

The step that matters

Make the roux before adding the liquid. Cooking the butter and flour together first cooks out the raw starch taste and lets the flour thicken smoothly. Adding liquid too quickly can leave lumps, so stir steadily while combining.

“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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