Skip to main content
Main

Collared Eels

A boiled eel seasoned with spices, tied, and pickled in vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Collared Eels

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eel

  1. Gut and bone the eel without skinning it.

  2. Rub the inside with salt, pepper, mace, allspice, powdered cloves, sage, parsley, thyme, savory, and marjoram.

  3. Roll the eel tightly and tie it.

Cook and pickle

  1. Boil it well in salt water.

  2. Add vinegar, and when cold, keep it in pickle.

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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Sage + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together507 recipes

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

  3. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Sage + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,485 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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 dish, becoming firm and tender when boiled and pickled.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that preserves the eel and gives the pickle its sharp, tangy flavour.
Sage
Contributes a savoury, herbal aroma that flavours the eel from the inside.
Thyme
Adds a warm, aromatic herbal note that complements the fish.

The step that matters

Boil it well in salt water. Boiling thoroughly cooks the eel through so it is safe and firm, while the salt seasons the flesh. Undercooking leaves the eel unsafe, and overcooking makes it tough and dry.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, allspice, clove, sage, parsley, thyme, marjoram):

  1. Winter savoryfits better
  2. Rosemaryfits better
  3. Oreganofits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, allspice, clove, sage, parsley, thyme, marjoram. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes