Skip to main content
Main

Collared Eels

Collared eels are eels seasoned, rolled, boiled, and served whole or sliced.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Collared Eels

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eel

  1. Bone and skin the eel, then split it open.

  2. Sprinkle the eel with salt, mace, cloves, allspice, sage, and minced herbs.

  3. Roll it up tightly and bind it with a broad piece of tape.

Cook and store

  1. Boil in water mixed with a little salt and vinegar until tender.

  2. Serve whole or cut into slices, and store in the cooking liquid with a bit more vinegar when cold.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together331 recipes

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

  3. Clove + sagetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together731 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Mace + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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 and is cooked until tender in the seasoned liquid.
Sage
Adds a savoury, aromatic herb flavour that complements the rich fish.
Vinegar
Adds acidity to the cooking liquid and helps preserve the eel when stored in it.

The step that matters

Boiling until tender. Eel must be cooked through and no further than tender, since the flesh becomes dry and tough if overcooked, and underdone eel is unsafe to eat. The gentle, salted, acidic liquid helps the rolled eel cook evenly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clove, allspice, sage, vinegar):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, allspice, sage, 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.

You might also like

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