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Eels a LA Poulette

A French eel dish simmered in a sauce of vinegar, wine, stock, butter, flour, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: White wine and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,765 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity. The science ↓

Eels a LA Poulette

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eels

  1. Boil water with a little vinegar, add the eels to the boiling water, and boil them for 5 minutes, then drain.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a pan and mix in the flour without browning.

  2. Add the white stock, white wine, salt, pepper, bouquet garni, and mushrooms.

  3. Add the eels and simmer for 30 minutes.

  4. Remove the eels and arrange them on a dish.

  5. Stir the egg yolks into the sauce while it is on the heat.

Serve

  1. Garnish with mushrooms and strain the sauce over the eels.

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. White wine + mushroomtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Vinegar + white winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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 when simmered gently in the sauce.
Butter
Enriches the sauce with fat and carries flavour from the pan into the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the butter and stock into a smooth, lightly bound sauce.
White stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce and gives it savoury depth.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce, giving it a silky, rich texture.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the rich sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken when heated, but if the sauce is too hot they can scramble and turn grainy. Keep the sauce on the heat but not boiling while stirring them in, so it becomes smooth and silky.

“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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