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Eel Pie

A savory pie made with eels, rump steak, fish, and a gravy of butter, water, and seasonings.

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 ↓

Eel Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pie

  1. Cut the eels into 2 to 3-inch lengths and remove the gills.

  2. Season the eels with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  3. Place the seasoned eels in a dish with bits of butter and a little water.

  4. Cover the dish with pastry.

  5. In the bottom of the pie dish, place small pieces of rump steak, but do not layer it with the eels.

  6. Add a little soy sauce or ketchup to the steak for gravy.

Make the gravy

  1. Boil 2 lbs of small eels, cut the fins close, and pick the flesh off the bones.

  2. Add the bones to the boiling liquor with mace, pepper, salt, and sliced onion.

  3. Boil the mixture until rich and strain.

Make the forcemeat and bake

  1. Make a forcemeat with the eel flesh, an anchovy, parsley, lemon peel, salt, pepper, and warmed butter.

  2. Lay the forcemeat at the bottom of the dish.

  3. Place the flesh of soles, small cod, or dressed turbot on top of the forcemeat, seasoned with salt and pepper.

  4. Pour the gravy over the fish and bake.

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. Sauce + turbottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together248 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Eels
Provide the main flavour and, with the forcemeat, the body of the pie.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the eels and the forcemeat.
Rump steak
Its meat juices and seasoning add savoury depth to the gravy.
Soles, small cod, or dressed turbot
Firm white flakes add a delicate texture over the forcemeat.

The step that matters

Boiling the bones into the gravy. Simmering the bones with onion and spices draws gelatin and flavour into the liquor. Boil until it is rich, since a weak stock gives a thin gravy. Strain well so the gravy is smooth and free of bone fragments.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, butter, sauce, onion, parsley, lemon, turbot):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, sauce, onion, parsley, lemon, turbot. 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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