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Boned Eel

A boned eel rolled with lemon rind, parsley, sweet herbs, mace, cayenne, and salt, then boiled in water and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley 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 ↓

Boned Eel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eel

  1. Clean the eel and remove the backbone.

  2. Mix the lemon rind, parsley, sweet herbs, mace, cayenne, and salt.

  3. Spread the mixture inside the eel and roll it up, starting with the head.

Cook and serve

  1. Tie the eel in a cloth and boil in equal parts water and vinegar until tender.

  2. Let the eel and stock cool completely, then remove the eel and serve.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + macetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,268 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Eel
Forms the main body of the galantine, and its flesh becomes tender when simmered.
Lemon rind
Adds bright aromatic oil that lifts the rich flavour of the eel.
Sweet herbs
Contribute fragrant, savoury aroma to the stuffing rolled inside the eel.

The step that matters

Let the eel cool completely in its stock. Cooling slowly in the cooking liquid keeps the eel moist and firm, so it holds its rolled shape and slices cleanly rather than falling apart or drying out.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

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