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To Stew Eels

A stew of eels simmered with butter, ketchup, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

To Stew Eels

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eels

  1. Clean and skin the eels; cut off the heads, fins, and tails, and divide the bodies into 4 to 5‑inch pieces.

  2. Dust each piece with flour.

Make the stew

  1. Melt the butter in a stew pan and brown the pieces of eel all over.

  2. Pour in enough hot water to just cover the eels, then add parsley, pepper, and salt.

  3. Simmer for about 15 minutes.

  4. Remove the eel pieces to a hot dish.

  5. Thicken the sauce with a little flour and ketchup, then boil for a few minutes.

Serve

  1. Strain the sauce over the eel and serve in a hash dish with toasted bread around the edges.

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 + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + ketchuptop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

Eels
Provide the main protein, with firm flesh that holds its shape during simmering.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and helps brown the flour-dusted eel pieces.
Flour
Dusting helps the eel brown, and a little flour thickens the sauce.
Ketchup
Adds tomato sweetness and acidity to the sauce, deepening its colour and flavour.

The step that matters

Browning the floured eel pieces. Browning the flour-dusted pieces in butter builds savoury, toasted flavour and a light crust. Pale, under-browned pieces give a flat sauce, so brown them all over before adding water.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, ketchup, pepper):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Allspicefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, ketchup, 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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