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Collared Eels

Collared eels are eels set in a clear jelly, garnished with parsley, eggs, anchovies, lemon, and beetroot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon 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 ↓

Collared Eels

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eels

  1. Clean the eels.

  2. Skin the eels.

  3. Boil the eels in seasoned water with salt, pepper, onion, bay leaf, clove, and vinegar.

  4. Remove the bones from the cooked eels.

  5. Cut the eels into 2-inch pieces.

Make the jelly

  1. Strain the boiling liquid.

  2. Boil the liquid in a saucepan without a lid, skimming until clear.

  3. Dissolve ¼ ounce of isinglass in the gravy.

  4. Boil the gravy for 1 minute.

  5. Let the gravy cool.

Assemble and set

  1. Arrange the eel pieces in a mold with parsley, hard boiled egg slices, and optional diced anchovies.

  2. Pour the jelly gently over the eel, a tablespoon at a time, to avoid disturbing the arrangement.

  3. Let the mold sit in cold water for 7-8 hours before turning out.

  4. Garnish the dish with parsley, lemon, and beetroot.

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

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

  4. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Parsley + beetroottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together745 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Eels
Main protein that becomes the body of the dish, set in the clear jelly.
Isinglass
Gelatin-like fish collagen that sets the cooking liquid into a firm jelly when chilled.
Hard boiled eggs
Add contrast in color and texture against the eel and clear jelly when sliced in the mold.

The step that matters

Pour the jelly gently, a tablespoon at a time. The jelly must be cooled but still liquid so it can settle around the eel without disturbing the arrangement. Pouring too fast or too hot can shift the pieces, cloud the jelly, or melt the layer already set, spoiling the appearance of the finished mold.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, clove, vinegar, parsley, egg, lemon, beetroot):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, clove, vinegar, parsley, egg, lemon, beetroot. 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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